Republican Senator John McCain (R-AZ)is running for President. Republican Gov. Tom Ridge's (R-PA) name has been being bandied about as possible vice-presidential material for a while now.
John McCain makes his opposition of internet-commerce tax a major plank in his platform. Gov. Tom Ridge comes out with a "tax holiday" for buying PC's...
I don't have video or photos of ball lightning, but I do have a story my grandfather told me about it and I hope that you might find it interesting. My grandfather died when I was very young, so I have no way of re-verifying this story, unfortunately.
According to him, after a summer thunderstorm in central Pennsylvania, he and his family were sitting in their living room when a ball of lightning 'rolled' up to their front door (which was open, although a screened door was closed at the time) and through it into their living room.
The ball of light, which he described as a bright yellowish white, travelled through the living room and through the rooms and hallways behind it only to disappear through the back door. Strange stuff - lucky for my Grampa, too! I've never encountered such, but I'd love to witness a phenomenon that many scientist discount as hooey only to see it proven true as fact.
Physicians and dynamiters are licensed. Hunters and drivers are licensed. Engineers (the way we're talking about it) are no more licensed than anyone else, they are hired because of their education and training, the same way programmers are.
#1 - The ETRADE ad was brilliant - a bunch of us who didn't even know the Titans were an actual football team were sitting around waiting to see the dotcom ads and were not let down. Did anyone notice Geech and Cousin Merle clapping along with the monkey? That killed me. #2 - Why didn't the Pepsi One ad have the people not being able to tell the difference between Pepsi One and regular Pepsi? It seems kinda self defeating to have them not being able to tell Pepsi One from Coke. (Whatever, I'm a Diet Coke drinker, addicted to the delicious aspartame). My $.02, thanks for your time.
It has been noted that "most of the electorate is not online" and for the most part I agree. However: I spent four years working as a Field guy in Democratic politics (that is, working for Democrats). For those of you who have never had a career in politics, the field guy is the main voter contact strategist, essentially figuring out where the candidate and his supporters need to go to meet the most people open to his message - and to some extent what they need to say to them to get their vote when they get there.
The field guy is the person who analyzes the voter data for a given state/congressional district on a precinct by precinct basis and makes the maps of streets and issues walklists to the volunteers telling them "Don't get anywhere near this neighborhood, it's full of Republicans and it's not worth our time" or "I looked at the data on this precinct, nobody here ever votes in the primary".
The field guy is the person who reminds the candidate that he's in X town where "X" is the big issue, and then knocks on a voter's door so the candidate can do his thing. Yes, most of the electorate is not online, and I can tell you that we did not earn our votes from 18-35 year old, fairly well educated males with an income of 30-100K (if this doesn't apply to a whole bunch of/. readers I will be surprised) - we earned our votes from the 80 year old WW2 vet and the 90 year old black woman who actually remembered marching with my candidate alongside MLK on the Mall in Washington.
However - Jesse Ventura would not have been elected if not for the internet. He's an unfortunate example, but there it is. And John McCain recently gathered volunteers for his petition drive to get on the ballot in VA and NY via targeted banner ads. I'm not a field guy anymore. But, if I still was, I'd be taking the internet just as seriously as I would the local fire station's pancake breakfasts and as seriously as those 10,000 calls I'd be paying to have made on election eve.
A defense of The Phantom Menace:
on
TIE-Tanic Movie
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· Score: 1
***WARNING - SLIGHTLY O.T. ARGUMENT ABOUT THE NEW STAR WARS*** That's so clever. I would like to believe that the so-called 'backlash' against the newest Star Wars movie has begun to stabilize and even reverse. We are no longer being subjected to the critics' indictments of Jar-Jar, the fan-boys have stopped their wailing that the movie failed to satisfy every fantasy of what the world's best movie should be, and now I think we can actually talk about the movie for what it actually was... Aside from me, who will come out and admit that sitting there in the theatre and before they went home and got online to read everyone else's comments actually really dug the Phantom Menace? Yes, there wasn't much to it, yes Jar Jar was kind of annoying (although I rather enjoyed him) but - Most of us were rather young when we first enjoyed the Star Wars trilogy - these are movies that are made to be accessible to kids, I think this new film is no different from the others and nobody should be condemning it because they expected it to be the equal in complexity to the Dune cycle - if nothing seemed to happen in this film, keep in mind that Lucas didn't have to re-explain an existing universe to billions of fans in 1977, he just had to throw out a bunch of characters and had no call to worry about people's pre-existing feelings about them or the worlds they inhabited. Also - this new cycle is going to stretch from Darth Vader's childhood all the way through the Clone Wars through the end of Return of the Jedi, so Lucas has a lot to do and he is to be forgiven for throwing a lot of exposition out front in the first film. Thank you for your time.
Agreed - Sterling's/my supposition wouldn't affect a lot of US consumers - big law firms, large corporations, etc. are still going to pay Microsoft or Adobe 200 seats-worth for their 200 users. I also agree with you that a lot of people know that if they don't want to pay $500 for Photoshop they can probably find a pirate copy somewhere. However, I'm also pretty sure that most people who would take the "illegal" but free and practically un-prosecutable version from my theoretical PRC site currently don't know how easy it is to steal software. My money would be on Joe Computer going "Alright, fuck the man, I'm not dropping $200 on Win2000 after I bought a computer with Win98 pre-loaded two months ago, I'm downloading it from this free site", and Joe Art-Major-Collegestudent, instead of cruising down to the computer lab, spending 1/2 an hour with his University's highspeed connex to pull down the full install of Photoshop 5.5. Also, I think we should take into account that (correct me if I'm wrong) I'm pretty sure that the US these days is far less than %50 of the market for software. I am pretty sure that your average small advertising firm or design house in Poland or Russia or the Czech Republic would have a lot fewer qualms about pirating Macromedia or Microsoft than their American counterparts. What happens to Adobe or Macromedia or Microsoft if a large percentage of their customer base suddenly realizes that they don't have to pay for it anymore?
Did anyone read Bruce Sterling's recent novel "Distraction"? He posits an interesting theory on how a proprietary-software-dependent US economy could brought to its knees by China and various third-world nations distributing all commercial software available in the US for free across the internet. Sort of like an intellectual property attorney's worst nightmare/wet dream - the entire world becoming one big warez site. Seriously, though - what would happen if China or any other nation put out a press release announcing that Win NT and 2000 as well as 3DSMAX, all Adobe products and every other expensive pieces of software were now available for free on these 500 servers they had just set up?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh! Well, when you put it that way...
Republican Senator John McCain (R-AZ)is running for President. Republican Gov. Tom Ridge's (R-PA) name has been being bandied about as possible vice-presidential material for a while now.
John McCain makes his opposition of internet-commerce tax a major plank in his platform. Gov. Tom Ridge comes out with a "tax holiday" for buying PC's...
Hmmm....
I don't have video or photos of ball lightning, but I do have a story my grandfather told me about it and I hope that you might find it interesting. My grandfather died when I was very young, so I have no way of re-verifying this story, unfortunately.
According to him, after a summer thunderstorm in central Pennsylvania, he and his family were sitting in their living room when a ball of lightning 'rolled' up to their front door (which was open, although a screened door was closed at the time) and through it into their living room.
The ball of light, which he described as a bright yellowish white, travelled through the living room and through the rooms and hallways behind it only to disappear through the back door. Strange stuff - lucky for my Grampa, too! I've never encountered such, but I'd love to witness a phenomenon that many scientist discount as hooey only to see it proven true as fact.
Physicians and dynamiters are licensed. Hunters and drivers are licensed. Engineers (the way we're talking about it) are no more licensed than anyone else, they are hired because of their education and training, the same way programmers are.
#1 - The ETRADE ad was brilliant - a bunch of us who didn't even know the Titans were an actual football team were sitting around waiting to see the dotcom ads and were not let down. Did anyone notice Geech and Cousin Merle clapping along with the monkey? That killed me. #2 - Why didn't the Pepsi One ad have the people not being able to tell the difference between Pepsi One and regular Pepsi? It seems kinda self defeating to have them not being able to tell Pepsi One from Coke. (Whatever, I'm a Diet Coke drinker, addicted to the delicious aspartame). My $.02, thanks for your time.
It has been noted that "most of the electorate is not online" and for the most part I agree. However: I spent four years working as a Field guy in Democratic politics (that is, working for Democrats). For those of you who have never had a career in politics, the field guy is the main voter contact strategist, essentially figuring out where the candidate and his supporters need to go to meet the most people open to his message - and to some extent what they need to say to them to get their vote when they get there.
/. readers I will be surprised) - we earned our votes from the 80 year old WW2 vet and the 90 year old black woman who actually remembered marching with my candidate alongside MLK on the Mall in Washington.
The field guy is the person who analyzes the voter data for a given state/congressional district on a precinct by precinct basis and makes the maps of streets and issues walklists to the volunteers telling them "Don't get anywhere near this neighborhood, it's full of Republicans and it's not worth our time" or "I looked at the data on this precinct, nobody here ever votes in the primary".
The field guy is the person who reminds the candidate that he's in X town where "X" is the big issue, and then knocks on a voter's door so the candidate can do his thing. Yes, most of the electorate is not online, and I can tell you that we did not earn our votes from 18-35 year old, fairly well educated males with an income of 30-100K (if this doesn't apply to a whole bunch of
However - Jesse Ventura would not have been elected if not for the internet. He's an unfortunate example, but there it is. And John McCain recently gathered volunteers for his petition drive to get on the ballot in VA and NY via targeted banner ads. I'm not a field guy anymore. But, if I still was, I'd be taking the internet just as seriously as I would the local fire station's pancake breakfasts and as seriously as those 10,000 calls I'd be paying to have made on election eve.
***WARNING - SLIGHTLY O.T. ARGUMENT ABOUT THE NEW STAR WARS*** That's so clever. I would like to believe that the so-called 'backlash' against the newest Star Wars movie has begun to stabilize and even reverse. We are no longer being subjected to the critics' indictments of Jar-Jar, the fan-boys have stopped their wailing that the movie failed to satisfy every fantasy of what the world's best movie should be, and now I think we can actually talk about the movie for what it actually was... Aside from me, who will come out and admit that sitting there in the theatre and before they went home and got online to read everyone else's comments actually really dug the Phantom Menace? Yes, there wasn't much to it, yes Jar Jar was kind of annoying (although I rather enjoyed him) but - Most of us were rather young when we first enjoyed the Star Wars trilogy - these are movies that are made to be accessible to kids, I think this new film is no different from the others and nobody should be condemning it because they expected it to be the equal in complexity to the Dune cycle - if nothing seemed to happen in this film, keep in mind that Lucas didn't have to re-explain an existing universe to billions of fans in 1977, he just had to throw out a bunch of characters and had no call to worry about people's pre-existing feelings about them or the worlds they inhabited. Also - this new cycle is going to stretch from Darth Vader's childhood all the way through the Clone Wars through the end of Return of the Jedi, so Lucas has a lot to do and he is to be forgiven for throwing a lot of exposition out front in the first film. Thank you for your time.
Agreed - Sterling's/my supposition wouldn't affect a lot of US consumers - big law firms, large corporations, etc. are still going to pay Microsoft or Adobe 200 seats-worth for their 200 users. I also agree with you that a lot of people know that if they don't want to pay $500 for Photoshop they can probably find a pirate copy somewhere. However, I'm also pretty sure that most people who would take the "illegal" but free and practically un-prosecutable version from my theoretical PRC site currently don't know how easy it is to steal software. My money would be on Joe Computer going "Alright, fuck the man, I'm not dropping $200 on Win2000 after I bought a computer with Win98 pre-loaded two months ago, I'm downloading it from this free site", and Joe Art-Major-Collegestudent, instead of cruising down to the computer lab, spending 1/2 an hour with his University's highspeed connex to pull down the full install of Photoshop 5.5. Also, I think we should take into account that (correct me if I'm wrong) I'm pretty sure that the US these days is far less than %50 of the market for software. I am pretty sure that your average small advertising firm or design house in Poland or Russia or the Czech Republic would have a lot fewer qualms about pirating Macromedia or Microsoft than their American counterparts. What happens to Adobe or Macromedia or Microsoft if a large percentage of their customer base suddenly realizes that they don't have to pay for it anymore?
Did anyone read Bruce Sterling's recent novel "Distraction"? He posits an interesting theory on how a proprietary-software-dependent US economy could brought to its knees by China and various third-world nations distributing all commercial software available in the US for free across the internet. Sort of like an intellectual property attorney's worst nightmare/wet dream - the entire world becoming one big warez site. Seriously, though - what would happen if China or any other nation put out a press release announcing that Win NT and 2000 as well as 3DSMAX, all Adobe products and every other expensive pieces of software were now available for free on these 500 servers they had just set up?