The skewing isn't that strange really. The pollsters can only ask so many people their opinions upon exiting the polls. They then guess how much weight to give to each category of votes. They see which way their polled asian females 18-21 vote and guess that 2% of voters will fall into that category. They see which way their polled hispanic males over 65 vote and guess that 3% of voters will fall into that category. And so they weight the relatively small sample of results they get based on what is largely guesswork. The problem? They guessed wrong. More people turned out than expected. Different people turned out in different numbers than they expected. Polling isn't an exact science. It's based on statistics from the past and guesses on what's going to happen this time around. The pollsters don't have any particular hold on future-telling to necessarily guess right (despiste what they try to tell you). Therefore, we have the disparate poll results.
Once they saw how the people really turned up at the polls, then they revised their weighting scheme and came up with what were much more accurate numbers. The whole hindsight is 20/20 saying applies here.
Would I say they were dishonest? No. Overly hopeful for Kerry? Probably. As all-knowing as they would have you believe? Not remotely.
Approximately 30.09% of VAAs have said that they want Bush as president.
Approximately 28.32% of VAAs have said they wanted Kerry.
Approximately 1.77% of VAAs have said they want somebody else.
Approximately 39.82% of VAAs decided that who they want as president was a secret not even a ballot could be told.
Who's to say what change that other ~40% of voters would have made. In some states, it wouldn't have amounted to a hill of beans. In others, it could have turned things upside down...or just made it tighter. I guess we'll never know since a large portion of the voting age popuation likes to keep their opinions a secret 'til after the election...when they start complaining. And no matter their complaint, they can always preface it with, "Well I didn't vote for him."
(All approximations based on a 59% voter turnout with 51% going to Bush and 48% going to Kerry.)
For the record, I also reject the doctrine of Hell, since it is obviously impossible to merit infinite punishment for finite sin
Punishment is not based solely on the extent of the crime that was committed. Punishment is also based on who or what the crime was committed against.
For example, if you torture and kill a mosquito, there's no punishment. If you torture and kill a dog, you'll probably be paying a fine. If you torture and kill a human being...don't expect to see the light of day again (either because of the death penalty of the dungeon cell in which you're incarcerated).
How much greater should be the punishment for a crime (let's call it a sin) that is committed against the eternal, infinite God?
A photograph of a house is nothing like a copy of a DVD (or a PPV movie). A copy of a movie is a functional equivalent of the original. A photograph of a house is not.
If you had some magical copy machine that could reproduce a $200,000 house for $10,000...then you'd be in the right ball park. And if the layout/blueprints of the home were copyrighted, you would be breaking the law.
And you think the U.S. government should be more concerned about the food on the tables of other countries than the food on their own citizens' tables?
If it's a question of whether a U.S. steel worker eats or a foreign steel worker eats...let the U.S. government do what is best for the U.S. steel workers...and let country x's government help their worker.
The questions was: Tell us about a time when you had an honest change of opinion on a topic of national importance.
To which Nader replied that he changed his mind about hot dogs. That is obvioudly of "national importance". He then went on to compain about Bush's decisions.
Kerry gave a nice answer...but not to the question that was asked.
None of them answered the given question. Bush was just the only one that didn't try to hide that fact.
"How much will you, as president, use your powers of reasoning and leadership to move the American people forward as a country, even when it means advocating courses of action that run contrary to your personal code of morality, opinions, or religion?"
If something was truly against your morality and beliefs, then you would therefore not think of it as a movement forward. If you believe something is wrong, then it's not a step forward. The two ideas cannot be meshed.
You're asking "If you think doing such-and-such will take us backwards as a country, will you pretend like it's going forwards just because somebody else says it is?"...or "If somebody says down is up...will you go that way even though you know it's wrong?"
Yes, the Empire State Building is tall...but nothing compared to the cave described in the article. The Empire State Building is about 381 meters tall. They descended 1830 meters into the aforementioned cave...4.8 Empire State Buildings...over 1.1 miles. I don't mean to put down the Sotano de las Golondrinas, but its depth just doesn't stack up well against this one.
I believe most people consider their door a barrier. It's often one of the strongest, sturdiest parts of their home.
Does it make the house impenetrable? Of course not. I think my post showed that pretty well. But it makes it that much harder to get in the house.
The same goes for disabling USB storage. It doesn't make the computer impenetrable, but it makes it a little bit harder to cause havoc. You'll never be able to plug every hole. Too many are discovered all the time that we never knew were there all along. Just because you can't plug every hole doesn't mean you should do nothing at all.
A smart admin knows his defenses and his holes. If he is smart, he uses all available tools to make the job of the "bad guy" (or stupid guy) that much harder. Some of those tools will stop certain attacks cold...some will just make them more difficult and time consuming...giving you more possibility to discover them before any damage is done. Any determined "bad guy" can find a way around your defenses...but there's no reason to make it fast and easy for him.
Doors are useless. You're missing the fact that these don't work for folks that know what they're doing, which is who you're trying to control.
Everyone else, i.e. the people that are just trying to get in and out of their house are the ones impacted by these doors.
Doorways may be a closeable hole. Are you going to close these too:
1. The windows. People try. But if you can throw a rock, brick, or wield a baseball bat, you can get through a window. You may use double-plated glass, etc. That doesn't close the "hole".
In fact, anyone worth their salt can break a window and go through it.
2. The chimney, say accessed via a ladder or grappling hook.
3. The skylight. Roof access is attainable via ladder or nearby trees if so inclined.
4. The crawl space. You could cut holes up through the bottom all day an nobody would see you.
Given all of this, I'd say it's pointless to try to close all the holes without a ground up redesign of how houses work, and even then, there are ways around it.
In conclusion, I think doors are pointless. They don't keep anyone out that really wants in. For that matter, windows and walls should also be done away with. I see no point in closing off what access we can. It's better just to let those who want access have as easy and fast a go at it as possible.
Why bother with an unreliable media like the floppy when anything small enough to fit on a floppy can be emailed or transferred across the network (via your favorite secure transfer protocol) from one machine to the other. If it's larger than that, you write a CD, use a USB dongle, etc. The floppy was dead years ago.
All the machines I've owned in the past 7+ years (PCs and Macs) have booted just fine from CDs for recovery purposes. And the CDs hold not only a bootable OS, but all the utilities you could need...and more.
I don't know any place where or why a floppy would be a "common" method of storage. Floppies have been dead forever.
With as little as fuel mileage has changed over the years...and as much as fuel prices have risen...why would I want a vehicle that gets even lower mileage on what is probably more expensive fuel?
All I can say is, I had the complete opposite experience with them. The same night I had the accident, their adjustor came to my house and walked around with his notebook. He went back to his car, punched the info into his computer for about 15 minutes, then out an estimate, leaving me to find a place to fix it for that price. I had a check within a couple of days after that and got the car fixed the next weekend and the rapair shop was paid right then.
I've never seen such fast service from any other insurance. *shrug*
Artsits should get paid...if people want their stuff. Just like a programmer gets paid if someone wants their "stuff".
No, they shouldn't be paid if there's no demand for their stuff. That is, if nobody is receiving their CDs, then nobody should be paying. But there should be an exchange...money for stuff.
An employer pays their employee for the "stuff" they produce (be it widgets, clean toilets, code or whatever) with salary. Artists also request payment for what they produce from their "employer" (the public).
I don't see a penny in royalties or per-copy fees for any of the intangibles I create, so why should anyone else?
Because not everyone is a "salaried worker". You don't directly see the royalties for your work because you aren't the creator...the block of people that are known as company xyz (or whoever it is you work for) is. They foot the bill for the expenses and divvy out the income as "salary". You are part of the creator...not the creator itself. You get your piece of the pie that is given to the company...as "salary".
Solo developers don't get a salary. They foot the bills for the development software, computers, etc. themselves..and probably expect to be paid directly for their work (look at shareware authors for instance).
Studio musicians get paid a "salary" to play music. The label pays for the studio time, the engineers, technicians, etc. And then they get paid the per-copy fees for the CDs produced. But most musicians aren't paid just because they made the music in the first place. They have to put the money down up front themselves. They then do their best to regain the thousands of dollars they laid down for instruments, recording, etc...one CD royalty at a time.
A staff writer for a magazine gets paid a salary to write their stories and editorials. They get no per-copy royalties on the sales...because they are just part of the machine that is Magazine, Inc. They don't invest their money in the computers, word processing/page layout software, printers, paper, pens, etc., etc. Magazine, Inc. pays for all of those. They get their peice of the pie as a salary. Freelance writers, book authors, etc. foot their own bill for the equipment and supplies necessary to produce a story or book. Then they have to sell their work to regain what they've spent...and hopefully feed, clothe and house themselves as well.
No...I care about the 100,000 workers who did all the work that made SBC over 8.5 Billion dollars in profit last year (check page 34 of the SBC 2003 Annual Report). Not the ones who did little to nothing to actually serve the customers and yet get all the benefits and kudos.
SBC (not an acronym, their name) is the parent company of what used to be Southwestern Bell, Ameritech, Pacific Bell, Nevada Bell, SNET, Cingular (along with Bell South), SBC Yahoo!, and are also partial owners of several international telecom interests (like TelMex).
The Cingular labor contract is completely different than the SBC contract and is not up for negotiation at this time. Any of the incoming people from AT&T Wireless have nothing to do with the part of the business being affected by this contract.
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The skewing isn't that strange really. The pollsters can only ask so many people their opinions upon exiting the polls. They then guess how much weight to give to each category of votes. They see which way their polled asian females 18-21 vote and guess that 2% of voters will fall into that category. They see which way their polled hispanic males over 65 vote and guess that 3% of voters will fall into that category. And so they weight the relatively small sample of results they get based on what is largely guesswork. The problem? They guessed wrong. More people turned out than expected. Different people turned out in different numbers than they expected. Polling isn't an exact science. It's based on statistics from the past and guesses on what's going to happen this time around. The pollsters don't have any particular hold on future-telling to necessarily guess right (despiste what they try to tell you). Therefore, we have the disparate poll results.
Once they saw how the people really turned up at the polls, then they revised their weighting scheme and came up with what were much more accurate numbers. The whole hindsight is 20/20 saying applies here.
Would I say they were dishonest? No. Overly hopeful for Kerry? Probably. As all-knowing as they would have you believe? Not remotely.
- Approximately 30.09% of VAAs have said that they want Bush as president.
- Approximately 28.32% of VAAs have said they wanted Kerry.
- Approximately 1.77% of VAAs have said they want somebody else.
- Approximately 39.82% of VAAs decided that who they want as president was a secret not even a ballot could be told.
Who's to say what change that other ~40% of voters would have made. In some states, it wouldn't have amounted to a hill of beans. In others, it could have turned things upside down...or just made it tighter. I guess we'll never know since a large portion of the voting age popuation likes to keep their opinions a secret 'til after the election...when they start complaining. And no matter their complaint, they can always preface it with, "Well I didn't vote for him."(All approximations based on a 59% voter turnout with 51% going to Bush and 48% going to Kerry.)
For the record, I also reject the doctrine of Hell, since it is obviously impossible to merit infinite punishment for finite sin
Punishment is not based solely on the extent of the crime that was committed. Punishment is also based on who or what the crime was committed against.
For example, if you torture and kill a mosquito, there's no punishment. If you torture and kill a dog, you'll probably be paying a fine. If you torture and kill a human being...don't expect to see the light of day again (either because of the death penalty of the dungeon cell in which you're incarcerated).
How much greater should be the punishment for a crime (let's call it a sin) that is committed against the eternal, infinite God?
A photograph of a house is nothing like a copy of a DVD (or a PPV movie). A copy of a movie is a functional equivalent of the original. A photograph of a house is not.
If you had some magical copy machine that could reproduce a $200,000 house for $10,000...then you'd be in the right ball park. And if the layout/blueprints of the home were copyrighted, you would be breaking the law.
And you think the U.S. government should be more concerned about the food on the tables of other countries than the food on their own citizens' tables?
If it's a question of whether a U.S. steel worker eats or a foreign steel worker eats...let the U.S. government do what is best for the U.S. steel workers...and let country x's government help their worker.
The questions was: Tell us about a time when you had an honest change of opinion on a topic of national importance.
To which Nader replied that he changed his mind about hot dogs. That is obvioudly of "national importance". He then went on to compain about Bush's decisions.
Kerry gave a nice answer...but not to the question that was asked.
None of them answered the given question. Bush was just the only one that didn't try to hide that fact.
"How much will you, as president, use your powers of reasoning and leadership to move the American people forward as a country, even when it means advocating courses of action that run contrary to your personal code of morality, opinions, or religion?"
...or "If somebody says down is up...will you go that way even though you know it's wrong?"
If something was truly against your morality and beliefs, then you would therefore not think of it as a movement forward. If you believe something is wrong, then it's not a step forward. The two ideas cannot be meshed.
You're asking "If you think doing such-and-such will take us backwards as a country, will you pretend like it's going forwards just because somebody else says it is?"
Yes, the Empire State Building is tall...but nothing compared to the cave described in the article. The Empire State Building is about 381 meters tall. They descended 1830 meters into the aforementioned cave...4.8 Empire State Buildings...over 1.1 miles. I don't mean to put down the Sotano de las Golondrinas, but its depth just doesn't stack up well against this one.
I believe most people consider their door a barrier. It's often one of the strongest, sturdiest parts of their home.
Does it make the house impenetrable? Of course not. I think my post showed that pretty well. But it makes it that much harder to get in the house.
The same goes for disabling USB storage. It doesn't make the computer impenetrable, but it makes it a little bit harder to cause havoc. You'll never be able to plug every hole. Too many are discovered all the time that we never knew were there all along. Just because you can't plug every hole doesn't mean you should do nothing at all.
A smart admin knows his defenses and his holes. If he is smart, he uses all available tools to make the job of the "bad guy" (or stupid guy) that much harder. Some of those tools will stop certain attacks cold...some will just make them more difficult and time consuming...giving you more possibility to discover them before any damage is done. Any determined "bad guy" can find a way around your defenses...but there's no reason to make it fast and easy for him.
Doors are useless. You're missing the fact that these don't work for folks that know what they're doing, which is who you're trying to control. Everyone else, i.e. the people that are just trying to get in and out of their house are the ones impacted by these doors.
Doorways may be a closeable hole. Are you going to close these too:
1. The windows. People try. But if you can throw a rock, brick, or wield a baseball bat, you can get through a window. You may use double-plated glass, etc. That doesn't close the "hole".
In fact, anyone worth their salt can break a window and go through it.
2. The chimney, say accessed via a ladder or grappling hook.
3. The skylight. Roof access is attainable via ladder or nearby trees if so inclined.
4. The crawl space. You could cut holes up through the bottom all day an nobody would see you.
Given all of this, I'd say it's pointless to try to close all the holes without a ground up redesign of how houses work, and even then, there are ways around it.
In conclusion, I think doors are pointless. They don't keep anyone out that really wants in. For that matter, windows and walls should also be done away with. I see no point in closing off what access we can. It's better just to let those who want access have as easy and fast a go at it as possible.
Why bother with an unreliable media like the floppy when anything small enough to fit on a floppy can be emailed or transferred across the network (via your favorite secure transfer protocol) from one machine to the other. If it's larger than that, you write a CD, use a USB dongle, etc. The floppy was dead years ago.
All the machines I've owned in the past 7+ years (PCs and Macs) have booted just fine from CDs for recovery purposes. And the CDs hold not only a bootable OS, but all the utilities you could need...and more.
I don't know any place where or why a floppy would be a "common" method of storage. Floppies have been dead forever.
Yeah...there's nothing quite so cool as live music.
What'd you say? It costs 2 - 7 times as much as a CD...and I only get to hear it once?
I think I'll stick with the overpriced plastic...thanks.
With as little as fuel mileage has changed over the years...and as much as fuel prices have risen...why would I want a vehicle that gets even lower mileage on what is probably more expensive fuel?
All I can say is, I had the complete opposite experience with them. The same night I had the accident, their adjustor came to my house and walked around with his notebook. He went back to his car, punched the info into his computer for about 15 minutes, then out an estimate, leaving me to find a place to fix it for that price. I had a check within a couple of days after that and got the car fixed the next weekend and the rapair shop was paid right then.
I've never seen such fast service from any other insurance. *shrug*
Artsits should get paid...if people want their stuff. Just like a programmer gets paid if someone wants their "stuff".
No, they shouldn't be paid if there's no demand for their stuff. That is, if nobody is receiving their CDs, then nobody should be paying. But there should be an exchange...money for stuff.
An employer pays their employee for the "stuff" they produce (be it widgets, clean toilets, code or whatever) with salary. Artists also request payment for what they produce from their "employer" (the public).
Probably because musicians don't have student tuition and taxes paying them a salary.
Solo developers don't get a salary. They foot the bills for the development software, computers, etc. themselves..and probably expect to be paid directly for their work (look at shareware authors for instance).
Studio musicians get paid a "salary" to play music. The label pays for the studio time, the engineers, technicians, etc. And then they get paid the per-copy fees for the CDs produced. But most musicians aren't paid just because they made the music in the first place. They have to put the money down up front themselves. They then do their best to regain the thousands of dollars they laid down for instruments, recording, etc...one CD royalty at a time.
A staff writer for a magazine gets paid a salary to write their stories and editorials. They get no per-copy royalties on the sales...because they are just part of the machine that is Magazine, Inc. They don't invest their money in the computers, word processing/page layout software, printers, paper, pens, etc., etc. Magazine, Inc. pays for all of those. They get their peice of the pie as a salary. Freelance writers, book authors, etc. foot their own bill for the equipment and supplies necessary to produce a story or book. Then they have to sell their work to regain what they've spent...and hopefully feed, clothe and house themselves as well.
Not everyone is in the same salaried boat.
Thanks. I guess my memory failed me. I thought it was dead by then. Maybe it was just dead by the time I got a G3.
No...the guy in Pakistan does the phone "support" for the customers if something on your VOIP gets screwed up.
No...I care about the 100,000 workers who did all the work that made SBC over 8.5 Billion dollars in profit last year (check page 34 of the SBC 2003 Annual Report). Not the ones who did little to nothing to actually serve the customers and yet get all the benefits and kudos.
SBC (not an acronym, their name) is the parent company of what used to be Southwestern Bell, Ameritech, Pacific Bell, Nevada Bell, SNET, Cingular (along with Bell South), SBC Yahoo!, and are also partial owners of several international telecom interests (like TelMex).
No...SBC is SBC. It is not an acronym. It is their name. It doesn't expand. It doesn't shrink. It just is.
The Cingular labor contract is completely different than the SBC contract and is not up for negotiation at this time. Any of the incoming people from AT&T Wireless have nothing to do with the part of the business being affected by this contract.