Text editors are probably the worst example to try to extend the rest of the virtues of OSS to the world. Any intermediate linux user, and *any* programmer, will probably spend 50%+ of their time in a text editing environment. Because of this, and the 'customizability' of linux and OSS in general, these users want that environment to work *exactly* like they want it to. If they don't like how the cntl-A key is bound, they'll rewrite code to change the binding. Of course, the obvious answer here is to use a scriptable/programmable text editor, but as you start adding such features, you start adding bloat, which may result in poor performance. So the reason why there are so many text editors is NOT that ppl want to see their name in lights -- they wrote it to scratch their own itch, and hoping that it helps others scratch theres.
Compare this to something like web servers. You don't work *in* the web server environment for any significant amount of time, you simply interface with it, either by config files or using standard interface calls like CGI and make sure it performs as expected. The differences between the various servers are mostly various tradeoffs in size and speed vs configurability. And as long as they live up to their expectations to work with all standards they proport to be compliant with, we don't care what else they do.
Therefore, others have already scratched that itch, and therefore there's no more work that needs to be done with it.
Gore's basically stated he's against the death penalty. When they panned to him nodding, I think that was more "Ah, ha! He fell into my trap!" (which technically wasn't his trap, just that a majority of the US population is against the death penalty, therefore as Bush shows his support for something more than half the country disagrees with, Gore knows that's a point for him he didn't even have to earn)
Several stories have reported busting child support payment avoiders that has, up to a point, managed to stay one step ahead of law officals, whereby the police would send the deliquents a notice that they have won a prize (on the order of a big screen TV or new car), and to come to such and such an address to pick it up. They came, signed in as appropriate, and once the identify was confirmed, they were arrested.
I think there was a Simpsons episode where they used the same trick, of course, the cops being who they are, it didn't go over very well...
Remember: All video games are not violent
on
Trigger Happy
·
· Score: 3
Sure, go to any store that sells PC and console titles, and most of them are going to be about physical violence to some living being (whether it's just beating the snot out of them as in Pokemon, or out and out killing like Q3A).
However, take a look at the top selling video game charts once in a while. Most of the time, at least 2 of the top 10 are going to be non-violent games. SimCity3K and Roller Coaster Tycoon are still at the top of the list. Games like Ceasar III, Pharaoh [*], racing games like Need for Speed, etc will usually come in near the top 25. The infrequent puzzle/adventure game such as Myst or Monkey Island get up the charts too. The number of these games in best seller lists tends to be disproportionate to the number available for purchase, suggesting that more people buy the non-violent games. This is probably a reflection on parents buying games for their children and staying with 'safe' titles, but it could also imply that game buyers also want to some extent less violent games. I know for myself that I like variety -- I can't play a FPS for anymore than a few hours straight before I need to switch to another genre of game.
[*] Ok, so you do have to battle enemies here, but I see it being true from an historical persective -- and your main goal in these games was not to genocide the opposing culture, but mainly to defend your own. It's definitely hard to compare the battles in these games to a q3a deathmatch.
There is a strong number of people on slashdot and elsewhere that *fear* a presidency by Dubya. If you saw how he sat back and smiled at the 2nd debate, glorifying the death penalty in Texas, that's a hint of the dark side of Dubya (I'm for death penalties, but not at a drop of the hat like Dubya, fwiw).
For other reasons, some are as scared of a Gore presidency.
In both cases, it's usually one is the lesser of two evils, and unfortunately, unless something major happens, one of these two will win. So as I really do not like the idea of Dubya for President, I'd vote Gore if I had no other choice, but fortunately, we have several good third party candidates to choose from this time.
In most states, the race has pretty much been decided, with either Gore or Bush winning by 10%, and those states total give neither an edge in the electoral college. This is the closest race in years, and everyone is looking to the so-called swing states (Minn and Mich, for example) where neither candidate is leading by more than 5%, and there's at least 10% of a undecided or third party vote. In those states, those that are like me, knowing they want to make sure a specific candidate *loses*, are going to have to
risk either voting third party, taking a vote away from the lesser of the two evils and giving the worst a chance to win, or voting for the lesser of two evils to make sure he wins. It basically comes down to how much they value having strong third party support in 4 years compared to NOT having a bad president for at least 4 years. And this, IMO, is a very important point, where 'vote with your conscience' won't cut it.
After the ICANN voting rules were spelled out, I realize that we really could use them here in this particular election. Basically, you'd rank your choices from all candidates for president. You then compare all the first choices, and if no winner appears, you nix off the lowest vote getter, using the next choice of those that voted for that person. Compare and nix again and again until you have a winner. This would allow those that want third parties to vote first for their party candidate, then for the lesser of two evils, and stick the worse one at the bottom.
It wasn't Pioneer 10, it was one of the Voyager probes (ST TPM listed some number > 2 as the total number of Voyager problems that NASA was supposed to have launched, but I believe we in reality only launched 2).
A 'chance to win' and a minimum vote rule make sense for a debate system with a 'large' number of parties. However, 15% is a huge number to obtain, particular for third party candidates: Perot barely made it in 1992. The problem is that 15%. When the debates started way back, it was put on by the League of Women Voters (IIRC). Soon they lost interest and a special private organization was created to run the debates -- made up of Democrates and Republicans. They decided on that 15% number, knowing full well that the chance of a third party candidate getting that was rather slim. IMO, any presidental debate should include at least 3 and no more than 5 candidates, the 3rd parties chosen based on rankings in the appropriate pools but required to be above 2% (so that we don't have a dem, rep, and a representative of the silly party up there).
Video games were already self-regulating as well, there are ratings on most games you buy at stores. However, the problem is not that these are there, but that most stored (KMart a notable exception) don't check age before buying, just like a movie theater not checking ages for an R or NC-17 film. They theorhetically can't get into trouble under current law (save for some places) but it's supposed to be their duty to prevent such sales.
(offtopic)
The first debate was the typical podium one. The one tonight (Wed, Oct 11) will be a round-table, similar to the VP debate, where Gore and Bush sit at a table with Lehrer, and will be given a bit more time to 'talk' to each other like the VP's did. The final debate next week will be town-hall system, which IIRC has a bit more audience participation in it.
Each type of debate has strenghts and weakens that each candidate was better at, so they choose the multiple styles when they dealed on the debate issue back in August. They also got the one that is most scripted out of the way, so that the latter ones will probably require more off the cuff answers and questions.
Taking an average of word counts from a 12pt, double spaced documenter, there's about 300 words a page. So MS will get about 37,500 words, which, IIRC, is midway between the typcial 1x,000 and MS's 56,000.
Because this means that there will be a change in President by the time the trial actually starts, MS might have gained another advantage (in addition to the one of having the appealate court take the case before the SC). While obviously Dubya will want to try to remove the case, Gore has hinted at stopping the nonsense as well (not because he's pro-Microsoft, but more laisse-faire). Only the third party candidates seems interested in chasing the issue, and they have little chance. So new Prez may nudge the DOJ into dropping the case, which could be a major
vicitor for BillG.
However, remember that there are 19 states still following this up, and the new Prez can't tell them to drop it. Yes, without DOJ support, the states' case have a bit tougher time of winning, but they've already gotten past the key issue ( the finding of facts) with the DOJ's help.
Another thing in BillG's favor is that there's suggestions that the appealate court might send the case back to the federal level, with the stipulation that Judge Jackson cannot preside over it because of bias he stated in interviews after the trial (and during the trial if rumors are right). Mind you, a new judge could be worse for MS, but I think they'd take their chance with that.
But of course, MS wins mainly because we are now looking at any resolution to this (after appeals and SC hearings) no earlier than Q4, 2001, approximately the scheduled release of.NET. And if Win95 with IE was a problem,.NET would be even worse, and asking MS to halt the use of.NET would be like telling Napster to shut down -- they *could* claim they will go out of business with any unfavorable/breakup/C&D ruling, and most likely, we'll end up with another slap on the wrist case. The DOJ and others need to put pressure on the court system to speed this case up to still allow it to be fair, but to make sure that MS 'innovation' doesn't suck in too many ppl when the ruling is handed down.
"Device for extraction and removal of undesirable waste byproductions from nasal chambers without the use of manual dexterity on the part of the operator".
I submitted this yesterday at 6pm *shrug*, but the key thing I pointed out is that this is only affecting the Motorola radio sales, of which there is a large segment of authorized, small business sellers; this is not the same as other Motorola products which are sold by the truckload at places like Circuit City or Best Buy. One poster did point out that it may be possible for this to spread to other sectors of Motorola's line, but either those sectors lack a large number of small business dealers, or they've already worked out how to get your customer information (for example, cel phones sales will definitely trigger them).
I looked at this picture, and being a chemical engineer, it's interesting as to why the gas giant forms 'rings' pararrel in global space to the equator of the planet. It's easily shown that if you spin a perfect sphere within an enclosed sphere, the gas between those two will form patterns as with Jupiter. As you start to 'roughen' the inner sphere, you begin to disrupt those patterns, and you'll get chaos in the patterns. If one could take a similar picture of earth, you'd expect to see the same, no horizontal bands of flow, but more turbulence.
Of course, this effect ebbs as you increases the space between the sphere relative to the amount of roughness of the inner sphere. So (as it's predicted) Jupiter's got an inner core so small relative to the diameter of it's gas size, that any turbulence created just outside of the core will be nullified by the time you hit the visible part of the planet.
But then why does the red spot persist? We've known about it for a couple of centuries, so if it were simply a local disruption from stability, it would have corrected itself by now, but everytime we look at it, it's about the same shape, size, color, and relative placement on the planet. Could there be something just beneath the layer of gases like a small moon that is dense enough to cause the red spot?
I'm sure this questions have been thought of, but space is still the most interesting thing we have to look at nowadays...
First, we had the problem where they were expecting only a 'handful' of people to respond to register to vote, but were swamped with thousands of requests. The server crashed and many of those that tried to get registered weren't able to. ICANN went on with it anyway.
Then, early in the voting process, election.com failed to recognize some of those voters, and had problems. They have appeared to be fixed the problem, but still, there was about a week in the narrow voting period where people that could legitimaly vote couldn't. And maybe those people had to leave on trips or vacations without access...good planning here with no way to absentee.
(As an aside, I also question this election.com. The internet as it is today has already seen one presidental election in 1996, so you cannot tell me that 1) election.com wasn't registered back then and 2) the ICANN election is their first use.
It would seem to me that they might have bought into election.com therefore violating everything ICANN was *meant* to do in first come first served, but I don't know how to check on this.)
Finally, this screwy voting system, which appears to be inadequetely explained. Is this how ICANN wanted? Maybe not, as the replies the fellow here got were from election.com. Could they have 'tampered' with how the election was going to be run to put their own goals forward? Even if ICANN sanctioned, the lack of details is unnerving. In most US ballots, they tell you exactly how many (or "vote for no than X" for some places), and it's plainly obvious on the winning conditions. Here, he had to weave through too many details to get his answer, and only until after he voted.
Mind you, this could work in the favor of those that read/. (and therefore against the panel-sponsered ones), as I would figure most people would read the instructions as demonstrated here, and fill in all 1 thru 7 (or whatever number in other areas), which is suggested to be a vote for each one (e.g a wasted vote). Those that know what the vote represents will only vote for the non-panel sponsered ones and Lessig (IMO), and therefore, they will get votes that the others dont. Of course, there could also be the continginent that want the panel members in there, and might know these facts too. We'll have to see.
However, I believe there is sufficient evidence that demands for a re-election based off the flubbering of the situation, starting from reregistering. Two of the incidents above are well-documented, and if this was a standard ballot election, such incidents would force a reelection.
I submitted this yesterday *shrug*, but what I got from the article was that the 4 major commercial distros were looking to standardizing on the base install issues (e.g. following the linux standard directory structure, making sure new packages go into the right places, having certain services and security features on/off by default), such that 1) the base for all 4 distros is common and strongly documented and 2) the 4 distros would no longer be competing at the OSS level, but at the service and support and additional features level. I'd compare this to buying PCs -- you can consider buying Gateway, Dell, Compaq, etc, who all basically offer a PC, which has been standardized with the required minimums, but offer additional features that may or may not suit your needs, thus offering you the choice. Or you can still build your own (compared to using something like Deb or Slack) and be more in control of the final features.
As far as it seems, they don't suggest anything about Debian or Slackware or any of the other non-commercial distros, which means we'll still
have the world of choice in Linux software.
And only good can really come out of standardize the basic linux install -- that's what the article points out is that all the differences in the commercial distros can cause market confusion, ala the UNIX split, and thus will cost some points for Linux in marketplace acceptence. Standardizing the base, so that you *know* you will get the same security and services as the other commercial distro will help strength the commercial sales of Linux.
Anime kicks most American animation, but as the box office shows, when it comes to feature films, audience will only go to American animation (given the failings of Princess Monokoke and the general distaste for Pokemon and the candy-coated anime). Anime has almost always been beyond kids, almost to the point of being NC-17 (or worse!), and while I appricate it, I don't think that even enlighted Americans would appriciate it.
I can name several animated films of late that have been 'looked over' by adults and only got mediocere outcomes in the box office.
"The Iron Giant". See this ASAP. It flopped at the box office due to poor advertizing by the WB, but if it was advertized as well as it was made, it could have been an Oscar contender. It was *not* a kids movie ("Duck and Cover" is mentioned), but instead, better seen as a "animated sci-fi movie", even though the main character is a kid. But the WB advertized it that way, and it came off boy-centric, and basically flopped. But most animation buffs agree that is was better than any animated work this decade.
"Balto" (hi matt!) had a few hokey parts, but for most matters, it was a good general (non-kids-only) movie with good effects and good story. Again, poorly advertized to audiences.
As other have pointed out, Slamming is illegal, but the penalities vary from state to state.
However, what annoys me about cases like this is that the penalty that AT&T will get is small, and that as a consumer, you'll see none of that (or, your amount will be the fraction of the award after the gov't splits it up among the people in the state). A similar case is happening with Ameritech in the midwestern states; after the SBC merger, they ditched a lot of tech workers and backed down from good customer support, such that now, customers are easily going 2, 3 weeks without simple phone repairs, and that's the least of the problems. The states are going fine these companies between 10 and 125 million (depending on the state), which again, will be eventually filtered down into a few dollars savings for the average consumer.
The recent Ford/Firestone tire recall brought a similar problem to light - there was strong rumors that at one point, Firestone weighed the cost of a recall of the tires in the US to the cost of settling any wrongful death lawsuits that may come from the problem. As I said, that's a rumor, but that seems to be a bottom line for many companies nowadays -- if it means more profits after paying the penalties, harm (physical or not) against the consumer is worth it. And while penalties may seem awfully high, these are usually paid back to the government, and then spread across all those that the government represents, even if they didn't have any dealings with that company (e.g, I drive a Dodge 2-door with Michilins).
It's more evidence that today's world is too strongly controlled by corporations. The concept of 'human resource' is being taken outside the workplace, and people's worth as a customer is all that matter to corporations, not the happiness of them.
Americans think animation is for kids. And because the FF film will be animated, it will be regelated to a kids movie, but probably, knowing
the FF series, a PG rating, which means NO ONE besides diehard nerds will probably see it. Only a few times has an animated movie (traditional or CG) ever made everyone sit up and take notice; Chicken Run, Toy Story and sequel, and some early 90s Disney are some examples. The fact that Oscars will finally give animated movies their own catagory next year is doublefaced; there must be at least 8 animated works to have this award given; typical year only sees 5 or so.
Right now, most people think of Carnivore as a black box that basically looks at email headers, grabs the emails of headers of marked addresses, and copies that off to somewhere else. Certainly enough speculation on the technical aspects of this, and many on the ethical side. What will you be looking for when you actually start this study? Are you trying to understand the technology behind it? Are you looking at it's effectiveness? The invasion of privacy issues that come from it? Will you be allowed to make suggestions and recommendations to the FBI, or are you mainly there to try to tell us, the American public, what and what not the Carnivore system can do?
Whether it's Napster, DeCSS, the CueCat, or whatnot, Lessig hit the biggest nail out there:
Copyright extends too long. If I were defending
Napster, I'd be arguing about these near-infinite copyright laws, such that there's a precidence to send that to the Supreme Court and revoke all those Sonny Bono-like copyright extention laws. Lessig offers 14 years, which is somewhat fair, but in today's age, I'd go lower, maybe 10.
A funny point was also made; Valanti stated that 2 out of every 10 movies made (at an average of $56mill) get movie back, so therefore the motion picture industry needs 'protection' to keep all their profits. Except that most reports indicate declining audiences, decreasing satisfaction with movies, and increasing money spent on making and promoting the movie. Hint, Hollywood: not every picture you release needs to be IML-ed or big star-ed to the gills. You can and HAVE made good movies with small budgets. Go back to the golden age of film and watch those movies; certainly you can't just take those and remake them, but you can learn a thing or two of what makes a good film. And if you start making good films again, maybe you'll get more people to see them, and then get more money back for each film made! (Gasp, what a concept!)
Lieberman's POV is pretty much what the senate committee had last week. Namely, that in the interests of free speech, the US Gov does not want to regulate Hollywood, but if Hollywood does not to control it's tendencies to questionable content, the Gov't will threaten to step in and take the necessary steps. To some extent, there's no problem with this. I saw ads for Scary Movie (Rated R, with very blatent sexual content) during prime time shows, and particularly in shows that kids might be watching. Yes, part of it is up to the parent to make sure their child knows what the mature material might be, and parents now have options of vchips, but you can't work these all of the time, and there are ways of getting around it (ads are not blocked by the vchip, unless the show itself is blocked). Hollywood has shown a very lack of regard to parenting issues in order to try to make the buck. I think it is reasonable to expect Hollywood to shape up their act, not necessarily by not producing mature-themed shows, movies, and games, but by limited whom they direct these sales to, and realize that it's possible to produce more all-around friendly venues in addition to mature ones as to continue to earn money.
However, there is a point where the gov't can overstep it's bounds; if they try to start passing legislation to control the marketing of mature material, then it could easily spread to the internet, and no one wants to see that. I'm pretty sure that the Gov't understands this, along with most big ecommerce places, so it's unlikely this will happen with enough pressure on Hollywood, but it is a possible scenario.
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Compare this to something like web servers. You don't work *in* the web server environment for any significant amount of time, you simply interface with it, either by config files or using standard interface calls like CGI and make sure it performs as expected. The differences between the various servers are mostly various tradeoffs in size and speed vs configurability. And as long as they live up to their expectations to work with all standards they proport to be compliant with, we don't care what else they do. Therefore, others have already scratched that itch, and therefore there's no more work that needs to be done with it.
Gore's basically stated he's against the death penalty. When they panned to him nodding, I think that was more "Ah, ha! He fell into my trap!" (which technically wasn't his trap, just that a majority of the US population is against the death penalty, therefore as Bush shows his support for something more than half the country disagrees with, Gore knows that's a point for him he didn't even have to earn)
I think there was a Simpsons episode where they used the same trick, of course, the cops being who they are, it didn't go over very well...
However, take a look at the top selling video game charts once in a while. Most of the time, at least 2 of the top 10 are going to be non-violent games. SimCity3K and Roller Coaster Tycoon are still at the top of the list. Games like Ceasar III, Pharaoh [*], racing games like Need for Speed, etc will usually come in near the top 25. The infrequent puzzle/adventure game such as Myst or Monkey Island get up the charts too. The number of these games in best seller lists tends to be disproportionate to the number available for purchase, suggesting that more people buy the non-violent games. This is probably a reflection on parents buying games for their children and staying with 'safe' titles, but it could also imply that game buyers also want to some extent less violent games. I know for myself that I like variety -- I can't play a FPS for anymore than a few hours straight before I need to switch to another genre of game.
[*] Ok, so you do have to battle enemies here, but I see it being true from an historical persective -- and your main goal in these games was not to genocide the opposing culture, but mainly to defend your own. It's definitely hard to compare the battles in these games to a q3a deathmatch.
For other reasons, some are as scared of a Gore presidency.
In both cases, it's usually one is the lesser of two evils, and unfortunately, unless something major happens, one of these two will win. So as I really do not like the idea of Dubya for President, I'd vote Gore if I had no other choice, but fortunately, we have several good third party candidates to choose from this time.
In most states, the race has pretty much been decided, with either Gore or Bush winning by 10%, and those states total give neither an edge in the electoral college. This is the closest race in years, and everyone is looking to the so-called swing states (Minn and Mich, for example) where neither candidate is leading by more than 5%, and there's at least 10% of a undecided or third party vote. In those states, those that are like me, knowing they want to make sure a specific candidate *loses*, are going to have to risk either voting third party, taking a vote away from the lesser of the two evils and giving the worst a chance to win, or voting for the lesser of two evils to make sure he wins. It basically comes down to how much they value having strong third party support in 4 years compared to NOT having a bad president for at least 4 years. And this, IMO, is a very important point, where 'vote with your conscience' won't cut it.
After the ICANN voting rules were spelled out, I realize that we really could use them here in this particular election. Basically, you'd rank your choices from all candidates for president. You then compare all the first choices, and if no winner appears, you nix off the lowest vote getter, using the next choice of those that voted for that person. Compare and nix again and again until you have a winner. This would allow those that want third parties to vote first for their party candidate, then for the lesser of two evils, and stick the worse one at the bottom.
It wasn't Pioneer 10, it was one of the Voyager probes (ST TPM listed some number > 2 as the total number of Voyager problems that NASA was supposed to have launched, but I believe we in reality only launched 2).
It was called 'Survivor'. :D
A 'chance to win' and a minimum vote rule make sense for a debate system with a 'large' number of parties. However, 15% is a huge number to obtain, particular for third party candidates: Perot barely made it in 1992. The problem is that 15%. When the debates started way back, it was put on by the League of Women Voters (IIRC). Soon they lost interest and a special private organization was created to run the debates -- made up of Democrates and Republicans. They decided on that 15% number, knowing full well that the chance of a third party candidate getting that was rather slim. IMO, any presidental debate should include at least 3 and no more than 5 candidates, the 3rd parties chosen based on rankings in the appropriate pools but required to be above 2% (so that we don't have a dem, rep, and a representative of the silly party up there).
The first debate was the typical podium one. The one tonight (Wed, Oct 11) will be a round-table, similar to the VP debate, where Gore and Bush sit at a table with Lehrer, and will be given a bit more time to 'talk' to each other like the VP's did. The final debate next week will be town-hall system, which IIRC has a bit more audience participation in it.
Each type of debate has strenghts and weakens that each candidate was better at, so they choose the multiple styles when they dealed on the debate issue back in August. They also got the one that is most scripted out of the way, so that the latter ones will probably require more off the cuff answers and questions.
Taking an average of word counts from a 12pt, double spaced documenter, there's about 300 words a page. So MS will get about 37,500 words, which, IIRC, is midway between the typcial 1x,000 and MS's 56,000.
However, remember that there are 19 states still following this up, and the new Prez can't tell them to drop it. Yes, without DOJ support, the states' case have a bit tougher time of winning, but they've already gotten past the key issue ( the finding of facts) with the DOJ's help.
Another thing in BillG's favor is that there's suggestions that the appealate court might send the case back to the federal level, with the stipulation that Judge Jackson cannot preside over it because of bias he stated in interviews after the trial (and during the trial if rumors are right). Mind you, a new judge could be worse for MS, but I think they'd take their chance with that.
But of course, MS wins mainly because we are now looking at any resolution to this (after appeals and SC hearings) no earlier than Q4, 2001, approximately the scheduled release of .NET. And if Win95 with IE was a problem, .NET would be even worse, and asking MS to halt the use of .NET would be like telling Napster to shut down -- they *could* claim they will go out of business with any unfavorable/breakup/C&D ruling, and most likely, we'll end up with another slap on the wrist case. The DOJ and others need to put pressure on the court system to speed this case up to still allow it to be fair, but to make sure that MS 'innovation' doesn't suck in too many ppl when the ruling is handed down.
Of course, this effect ebbs as you increases the space between the sphere relative to the amount of roughness of the inner sphere. So (as it's predicted) Jupiter's got an inner core so small relative to the diameter of it's gas size, that any turbulence created just outside of the core will be nullified by the time you hit the visible part of the planet.
But then why does the red spot persist? We've known about it for a couple of centuries, so if it were simply a local disruption from stability, it would have corrected itself by now, but everytime we look at it, it's about the same shape, size, color, and relative placement on the planet. Could there be something just beneath the layer of gases like a small moon that is dense enough to cause the red spot?
I'm sure this questions have been thought of, but space is still the most interesting thing we have to look at nowadays...
Then, early in the voting process, election.com failed to recognize some of those voters, and had problems. They have appeared to be fixed the problem, but still, there was about a week in the narrow voting period where people that could legitimaly vote couldn't. And maybe those people had to leave on trips or vacations without access...good planning here with no way to absentee.
(As an aside, I also question this election.com. The internet as it is today has already seen one presidental election in 1996, so you cannot tell me that 1) election.com wasn't registered back then and 2) the ICANN election is their first use. It would seem to me that they might have bought into election.com therefore violating everything ICANN was *meant* to do in first come first served, but I don't know how to check on this.)
Finally, this screwy voting system, which appears to be inadequetely explained. Is this how ICANN wanted? Maybe not, as the replies the fellow here got were from election.com. Could they have 'tampered' with how the election was going to be run to put their own goals forward? Even if ICANN sanctioned, the lack of details is unnerving. In most US ballots, they tell you exactly how many (or "vote for no than X" for some places), and it's plainly obvious on the winning conditions. Here, he had to weave through too many details to get his answer, and only until after he voted.
Mind you, this could work in the favor of those that read /. (and therefore against the panel-sponsered ones), as I would figure most people would read the instructions as demonstrated here, and fill in all 1 thru 7 (or whatever number in other areas), which is suggested to be a vote for each one (e.g a wasted vote). Those that know what the vote represents will only vote for the non-panel sponsered ones and Lessig (IMO), and therefore, they will get votes that the others dont. Of course, there could also be the continginent that want the panel members in there, and might know these facts too. We'll have to see.
However, I believe there is sufficient evidence that demands for a re-election based off the flubbering of the situation, starting from reregistering. Two of the incidents above are well-documented, and if this was a standard ballot election, such incidents would force a reelection.
As far as it seems, they don't suggest anything about Debian or Slackware or any of the other non-commercial distros, which means we'll still have the world of choice in Linux software.
And only good can really come out of standardize the basic linux install -- that's what the article points out is that all the differences in the commercial distros can cause market confusion, ala the UNIX split, and thus will cost some points for Linux in marketplace acceptence. Standardizing the base, so that you *know* you will get the same security and services as the other commercial distro will help strength the commercial sales of Linux.
Anime kicks most American animation, but as the box office shows, when it comes to feature films, audience will only go to American animation (given the failings of Princess Monokoke and the general distaste for Pokemon and the candy-coated anime). Anime has almost always been beyond kids, almost to the point of being NC-17 (or worse!), and while I appricate it, I don't think that even enlighted Americans would appriciate it.
"The Iron Giant". See this ASAP. It flopped at the box office due to poor advertizing by the WB, but if it was advertized as well as it was made, it could have been an Oscar contender. It was *not* a kids movie ("Duck and Cover" is mentioned), but instead, better seen as a "animated sci-fi movie", even though the main character is a kid. But the WB advertized it that way, and it came off boy-centric, and basically flopped. But most animation buffs agree that is was better than any animated work this decade.
"Balto" (hi matt!) had a few hokey parts, but for most matters, it was a good general (non-kids-only) movie with good effects and good story. Again, poorly advertized to audiences.
And if you pay attention, that's the demographic they are going for.
However, what annoys me about cases like this is that the penalty that AT&T will get is small, and that as a consumer, you'll see none of that (or, your amount will be the fraction of the award after the gov't splits it up among the people in the state). A similar case is happening with Ameritech in the midwestern states; after the SBC merger, they ditched a lot of tech workers and backed down from good customer support, such that now, customers are easily going 2, 3 weeks without simple phone repairs, and that's the least of the problems. The states are going fine these companies between 10 and 125 million (depending on the state), which again, will be eventually filtered down into a few dollars savings for the average consumer.
The recent Ford/Firestone tire recall brought a similar problem to light - there was strong rumors that at one point, Firestone weighed the cost of a recall of the tires in the US to the cost of settling any wrongful death lawsuits that may come from the problem. As I said, that's a rumor, but that seems to be a bottom line for many companies nowadays -- if it means more profits after paying the penalties, harm (physical or not) against the consumer is worth it. And while penalties may seem awfully high, these are usually paid back to the government, and then spread across all those that the government represents, even if they didn't have any dealings with that company (e.g, I drive a Dodge 2-door with Michilins).
It's more evidence that today's world is too strongly controlled by corporations. The concept of 'human resource' is being taken outside the workplace, and people's worth as a customer is all that matter to corporations, not the happiness of them.
Right now, most people think of Carnivore as a black box that basically looks at email headers, grabs the emails of headers of marked addresses, and copies that off to somewhere else. Certainly enough speculation on the technical aspects of this, and many on the ethical side. What will you be looking for when you actually start this study? Are you trying to understand the technology behind it? Are you looking at it's effectiveness? The invasion of privacy issues that come from it? Will you be allowed to make suggestions and recommendations to the FBI, or are you mainly there to try to tell us, the American public, what and what not the Carnivore system can do?
A funny point was also made; Valanti stated that 2 out of every 10 movies made (at an average of $56mill) get movie back, so therefore the motion picture industry needs 'protection' to keep all their profits. Except that most reports indicate declining audiences, decreasing satisfaction with movies, and increasing money spent on making and promoting the movie. Hint, Hollywood: not every picture you release needs to be IML-ed or big star-ed to the gills. You can and HAVE made good movies with small budgets. Go back to the golden age of film and watch those movies; certainly you can't just take those and remake them, but you can learn a thing or two of what makes a good film. And if you start making good films again, maybe you'll get more people to see them, and then get more money back for each film made! (Gasp, what a concept!)
However, there is a point where the gov't can overstep it's bounds; if they try to start passing legislation to control the marketing of mature material, then it could easily spread to the internet, and no one wants to see that. I'm pretty sure that the Gov't understands this, along with most big ecommerce places, so it's unlikely this will happen with enough pressure on Hollywood, but it is a possible scenario.