Interesting comment - if we are to extend the analogy completely, we'd have to acknowledge that even these complex systems sometimes require a few attempts before either being scrapped (as unworkable or too expensive) or before they are successful.
That having been said, I personally think the issues we've seen with e-voting are ridiculous - by comparison, it's not a very complicated process.
I had an experience not too long ago that had me asking the same question. I first went to the website of a well-known bookseller to check the price on a particular item. They had a list price and an online price. Quite naturally, the online price was cheaper, but I was willing to fork over the list price because I still thought it was reasonable. I walk into the store to find that the shelf price was 60% over list. When I inquired as to why this was, I got the usual smattering of excuses, and an assertion that they would not be able to match the list price on their own website. After some discussion, I placed the item back on the shelf and left. A day later, I purchased the same item from an online retailer at a price that was 30% less than their list price.
So yeah, brick-and-mortars can whine about the fact that they have to charge sales tax, and that this gives online retailers an advantage, but please...when you pull this kind of crap with customers, EXPECT to lose business.
He completely overlooked this - in fact, I found this comment rather amusing: "...so I can take little mental breaks and sing along." Around coworkers. Whom, he assumes, have their earbuds in. They may have their earbuds in, but it might be that they are pursuing the lesser of two completely undesirable options. I used to think like he did - that I needed music in order to code. After trying a little experiment where I went without for a while, I realized how much I had been kidding myself. I am now a strong believer that there's nothing like a quiet environment for allowing one to focus on their work.
I think there are a few factors you are overlooking. If a book contains highly specialized knowledge, the cost to aggregate this knowledge into a concise and useful format CAN be signficant. Second, it may not sell a huge number of copies no matter what the price is - some books are only useful to very niche groups. What else is one to do but charge a price based on the number of copies they expect to sell - to at minimum, recoup the cost of writing the book?
Thanks for the correction - I apparently confused this with a site called http://coughsafe.com./ However, the CDC also states, Then, clean your hands, and do so every time you cough or sneeze." The coughsafe.com website recommended the sleeve approach over any other, due at least in part, I imagine, to the fact that people are generally not going inconvenience themselves to wash their hands every time they cough or sneeze.
Whatever you do, do NOT cover your mouth with your hand unless you intend to wash it immediately afterward. Using kleenex is equally ineffective, since all that junk seeps right through to the hands anyway. The CDC recommends using the sleeve of your shirt - sneezing and coughing into the sleeve right at the elbow joint. This minimizes the chance of spreading all the crap that comes out of your nose and mouth at 80-100 MPH.
I'm all for restoring the original 17-year copyright. Even THAT is a huge benefit, because unlike when copyright law was first implemented, the means of distribution with modern technology cost far less, and is much faster. Putting something on the internet can make it immediately available, and the cost of distribution per unit is negligible.
Electronic voting will never be more secure than paper voting until it has a verifiable method of quality assurance. There are far too many points and method of potential failure/fraud that can go entirely undetected.
I see this argument all the time - to be honest, it's nothing but a way to rationalize the status quo. I have no doubt that they'd try something like this, but they're doing to have one hell of a time proving it.
Yes, I do. The artists aren't blameless here if they refuse to be part of the solution. They resist this kind of change for the same reason that the RIAA does - they don't want to risk disruption of the money pipeline. At that point I'd have to wonder what their real objective is - to be artistic and create, or to maximize the money they get for doing it.
Stop funding them. More and more artists are starting to see the light - that even if they give away their new albums online, and make their money via live concerts, they will *still* make more than they are through these usurious contracts they have with Big Media, Inc.
If people would just stop buying RIAA-produced crap (and stop stealing it!), the problem would eventually solve itself. It's no secret that they'll need to be dragged kicking and screaming back to this thing we all know as 'reality,' but it's gotta happen sooner or later. Right now we're just prolonging the agony for everyone.
It's better than the proprietary weak sauce which, of course, is a perfect complement to the a main dish of roasted lame. Frozen strawberry stupid for desert.
Oh, and by the way, I'm extremely happy that Business offers such people a constructive outlet for their energy and aggression. Because otherwise it would go into Crime or Politics (or both).
They are becoming indistinguishable. I'd opine that the whole bailout was nothing than legalized theft - grand larceny actually - on a rather grand scale. Despite the obvious carelessness and contempt inherent in the Wall Street money train, there were few (if any) real consequences.
Well, seriously - the US government just gave us the worst economic mess in our history. The US government then PAID the Wall Street sleaze that caused it a rather handsome sum for their efforts. The US government is NOW proposing that despite all of this, the right thing to do is allow the banking industry to self-regulate. The US government came up with the legislation that is allowing the paper companies to take advantage of this loophole. The US government allows the industry lobbyists to write legislation that protects them far more than it protects us.
Oh, the list goes on and on....give me one good reason I should take anything from the US government with more than a grain of salt.
Personally, I couldn't care less if certain government owned and operated resources are taken off line. However, start messing with the internet at large, and you've got some rather significant problems...many businesses, for example, have grown to rely very heavily on their internet presence - so much so that just a few hours offline could cost them millions. There is simply too much in the private sector that is dependent on the availability of that connection - it's not something you'd want to toy with to show everyone how just much control has been accumulated in all the wrong places.
Once people get over the misguided notion that they have to use applications like Photoshop - not because they need to - but because "it's Photoshop," this will also help Linux adoption. I heard John C. Dvorak in a TWiT podcast the other day mention that he'd be happy switching to Ubuntu - except that it doesn't run Photoshop. I'm thinking, "he's a columnist. What could he possibly need to do with Photoshop that couldn't easily be done with the Gimp?"
Did you all catch Chris Dodd saying he had nothing to do with the change in the bailout legislation to allow these bonuses, then the next day saying oops, that was me. "Somebody should have caught it sooner"
So you're saying the Obama's golden butthead, Tim Geithner, after stating that he was the one who made the change, isn't actually the one who made the change?
Agreed. This is just KLOC as a social metric. There are people who may say very little, but produce great results. And the reason they say very little is because they are more focused on the results than on the BS that many people rely on to convey a (false) sense of usefulness. One wonders how much of this "value" will be determined by politics, and have little to do with reality. This is especially true in situations where the "valued" information might be very accurate, but very unpopular.
Some have concluded that had the buildings not been blurred on 9/11, they would have been able to steer the planes out of the way in time. Oh wait...
The "fire!" analogy this guy uses is exactly the opposite, as the blur is tantamount to yelling, "Bullseye!". The only solution is obvious, and that's to blur the entire map.
I forgot to mention - they had an entire wall about half the length of the store filled with TVs. They were mostly LCD/plasma, and they had smaller ones on the shelves nearby. I was looking at a Samsung, because the particular model I was interested in was rated quite highly, and also had some of the newer features (120Hz scan rate and dynamic backlighting).
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting comment - if we are to extend the analogy completely, we'd have to acknowledge that even these complex systems sometimes require a few attempts before either being scrapped (as unworkable or too expensive) or before they are successful.
That having been said, I personally think the issues we've seen with e-voting are ridiculous - by comparison, it's not a very complicated process.
There's no coconut titty either, but...
I had an experience not too long ago that had me asking the same question. I first went to the website of a well-known bookseller to check the price on a particular item. They had a list price and an online price. Quite naturally, the online price was cheaper, but I was willing to fork over the list price because I still thought it was reasonable. I walk into the store to find that the shelf price was 60% over list. When I inquired as to why this was, I got the usual smattering of excuses, and an assertion that they would not be able to match the list price on their own website. After some discussion, I placed the item back on the shelf and left. A day later, I purchased the same item from an online retailer at a price that was 30% less than their list price.
So yeah, brick-and-mortars can whine about the fact that they have to charge sales tax, and that this gives online retailers an advantage, but please...when you pull this kind of crap with customers, EXPECT to lose business.
Use them for target practice.
He completely overlooked this - in fact, I found this comment rather amusing: "...so I can take little mental breaks and sing along." Around coworkers. Whom, he assumes, have their earbuds in. They may have their earbuds in, but it might be that they are pursuing the lesser of two completely undesirable options. I used to think like he did - that I needed music in order to code. After trying a little experiment where I went without for a while, I realized how much I had been kidding myself. I am now a strong believer that there's nothing like a quiet environment for allowing one to focus on their work.
Fascinating lesson in Japanese culture. Thanks for taking the time!
I think there are a few factors you are overlooking. If a book contains highly specialized knowledge, the cost to aggregate this knowledge into a concise and useful format CAN be signficant. Second, it may not sell a huge number of copies no matter what the price is - some books are only useful to very niche groups. What else is one to do but charge a price based on the number of copies they expect to sell - to at minimum, recoup the cost of writing the book?
Thanks for the correction - I apparently confused this with a site called http://coughsafe.com./ However, the CDC also states, Then, clean your hands, and do so every time you cough or sneeze." The coughsafe.com website recommended the sleeve approach over any other, due at least in part, I imagine, to the fact that people are generally not going inconvenience themselves to wash their hands every time they cough or sneeze.
Whatever you do, do NOT cover your mouth with your hand unless you intend to wash it immediately afterward. Using kleenex is equally ineffective, since all that junk seeps right through to the hands anyway. The CDC recommends using the sleeve of your shirt - sneezing and coughing into the sleeve right at the elbow joint. This minimizes the chance of spreading all the crap that comes out of your nose and mouth at 80-100 MPH.
I'm all for restoring the original 17-year copyright. Even THAT is a huge benefit, because unlike when copyright law was first implemented, the means of distribution with modern technology cost far less, and is much faster. Putting something on the internet can make it immediately available, and the cost of distribution per unit is negligible.
Electronic voting will never be more secure than paper voting until it has a verifiable method of quality assurance. There are far too many points and method of potential failure/fraud that can go entirely undetected.
I see this argument all the time - to be honest, it's nothing but a way to rationalize the status quo. I have no doubt that they'd try something like this, but they're doing to have one hell of a time proving it.
Yes, I do. The artists aren't blameless here if they refuse to be part of the solution. They resist this kind of change for the same reason that the RIAA does - they don't want to risk disruption of the money pipeline. At that point I'd have to wonder what their real objective is - to be artistic and create, or to maximize the money they get for doing it.
Stop funding them. More and more artists are starting to see the light - that even if they give away their new albums online, and make their money via live concerts, they will *still* make more than they are through these usurious contracts they have with Big Media, Inc.
If people would just stop buying RIAA-produced crap (and stop stealing it!), the problem would eventually solve itself. It's no secret that they'll need to be dragged kicking and screaming back to this thing we all know as 'reality,' but it's gotta happen sooner or later. Right now we're just prolonging the agony for everyone.
It's better than the proprietary weak sauce which, of course, is a perfect complement to the a main dish of roasted lame. Frozen strawberry stupid for desert.
Oh, and by the way, I'm extremely happy that Business offers such people a constructive outlet for their energy and aggression. Because otherwise it would go into Crime or Politics (or both).
They are becoming indistinguishable. I'd opine that the whole bailout was nothing than legalized theft - grand larceny actually - on a rather grand scale. Despite the obvious carelessness and contempt inherent in the Wall Street money train, there were few (if any) real consequences.
Well, seriously - the US government just gave us the worst economic mess in our history. The US government then PAID the Wall Street sleaze that caused it a rather handsome sum for their efforts. The US government is NOW proposing that despite all of this, the right thing to do is allow the banking industry to self-regulate. The US government came up with the legislation that is allowing the paper companies to take advantage of this loophole. The US government allows the industry lobbyists to write legislation that protects them far more than it protects us.
Oh, the list goes on and on....give me one good reason I should take anything from the US government with more than a grain of salt.
There was a partial core meltdown. That, no matter how you choose to define it, it NOT insignificant.
Personally, I couldn't care less if certain government owned and operated resources are taken off line. However, start messing with the internet at large, and you've got some rather significant problems...many businesses, for example, have grown to rely very heavily on their internet presence - so much so that just a few hours offline could cost them millions. There is simply too much in the private sector that is dependent on the availability of that connection - it's not something you'd want to toy with to show everyone how just much control has been accumulated in all the wrong places.
Once people get over the misguided notion that they have to use applications like Photoshop - not because they need to - but because "it's Photoshop," this will also help Linux adoption. I heard John C. Dvorak in a TWiT podcast the other day mention that he'd be happy switching to Ubuntu - except that it doesn't run Photoshop. I'm thinking, "he's a columnist. What could he possibly need to do with Photoshop that couldn't easily be done with the Gimp?"
Did you all catch Chris Dodd saying he had nothing to do with the change in the bailout legislation to allow these bonuses, then the next day saying oops, that was me. "Somebody should have caught it sooner"
So you're saying the Obama's golden butthead, Tim Geithner, after stating that he was the one who made the change, isn't actually the one who made the change?
Agreed. This is just KLOC as a social metric. There are people who may say very little, but produce great results. And the reason they say very little is because they are more focused on the results than on the BS that many people rely on to convey a (false) sense of usefulness. One wonders how much of this "value" will be determined by politics, and have little to do with reality. This is especially true in situations where the "valued" information might be very accurate, but very unpopular.
I have to disagree...it's the churches that need to get out of the business of deciding matters that involve legal status.
to alert them of a real and present.. building
Some have concluded that had the buildings not been blurred on 9/11, they would have been able to steer the planes out of the way in time. Oh wait...
The "fire!" analogy this guy uses is exactly the opposite, as the blur is tantamount to yelling, "Bullseye!". The only solution is obvious, and that's to blur the entire map.
I forgot to mention - they had an entire wall about half the length of the store filled with TVs. They were mostly LCD/plasma, and they had smaller ones on the shelves nearby. I was looking at a Samsung, because the particular model I was interested in was rated quite highly, and also had some of the newer features (120Hz scan rate and dynamic backlighting).