All impressions of Shatner are uncanny, and it has nothing to do with how accurate they are.
Speaking... ofthegoodCAPtain... Kirk... We've destroyed all documents connecting him to Canada, you can no longer prove he came from here. Still working on Bryan Adams.
PS Villachaize is a frog. (No, not french... a genetic crossbreed)
Just practice "Noo doot aboot it, eh?" in front of a mirror, wearing a toque, hockey jersey, and snowshoes, while riding a polar bear, and you'll blend right in. Honest.;)
"Excellent question. I always thought this was incredibly stupid. I am guessing two possible reasons: 1) His scientists actually were lying to him that they had real weapons programs and potential weapons, therefore he was trying to keep the UN from finding imaginary WMDs. 2) He knew there were no WMDs, but stupidly thought that if the US thought he had them, we would not invade."
3) The fear of his WMDs helped him maintain control of his own population.
"There *is* no good reason to have done what they did."
No, of course there isn't, and those responsible should be punished. (Iraq is not on that list, but that's a whole other thread) But "why" is still an important question and deserves consideration.
If you want to put it to analogies, would a judge or jury sentence a murderer without even ASKING about motive?
Anyway my point is not about questions of guilt, it's merely about the possibility that ONE FACET of your response to 9/11, if you truly have an interest in preventing future acts, might be to consider why they have such murderous hatred, and whether there's any sensible things to do about that? Or does your pride prevent that? You don't really swallow the "they hate our freedoms" crap, do you?
I noticed that Gallup often seemed to be WAY different than other polls (ie back in mid Sept, right after the RNC bounce faded, I recall them putting Bush ahead by 12 points when every other major poll had them in a statistical tie), so I looked into their methodology...
They poll based on the previous election's turnout. That is, they start from the assumption that Republican/Democrat turnout (as percentages) in 2004 will be identical to 2000. Since registered Republicans apparently had a higher turnout than registered Democrats in 2000 (40% to 33%), they include proportionately higher numbers of Republicans in their polling sample. That's how they determine their mix of "likely voters". Here's an (admittedly partisan) article on it: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002806.html
As for what polls electoral-vote.com uses, he always uses polls with the most recent median date.
'And it's people like you who were asking "why do they hate us" after 9/11...'
It's been my experience that people like that never ask "why" at all.
That was my big beef after 9/11... everyone was asking who, what, how, when, and where. Nobody asked why. Retribution completely dominated all thinking.
"I have invested in US companies, but because of the US$ it is no longer profitable to do so. I am in two minds of removing my investments to another market or not. Really depends on this election."
I pulled out of American equity positions a couple months ago. Nothing to do with the dollar, although that is a direct result of the real problem: Soaring oil prices.
This book: The Oil Factor, makes a comprehensive case that the price of oil has dominated the economy for the last 30 years. Basically they suggest that if the price of oil goes up by 80% or more in a year (they recognize putting an exact number on it is impossible, but that's the rule of thumb they settled on), the market will suffer enormous losses and very marginal gains over the next 18 months, based on historical trends. When oil drops, or rises more slowly (about 20% per annum), the situation reverses itself and the stock market will perform very well. All the recessions of the last 30 years (yes, even the dot bomb) have been preceeded by sharp increases in oil. Oil went over the 80% higher threshhold in September.
Now where it gets scary, is that unlike the past, oil will probably NEVER go back down to where it used to be, due to the fact that demand is on the cusp of overtaking supply. "Fear factors" aside, that's the real reason oil keeps climbing and climbing. Google "peak oil" if you don't know about this. It's not some conspiracy theory (although the doomsday predictions of some will make it seem like one), it's a geological certainty.
Since this IS a political thread, I'll throw in a plug.. this (IMO) is another compelling reason to vote against the Bush administration; they're attached to the oil industry at the hip and will NOT vigorously pursue renewables until it's too late. (Many believe it's too late already)
"Although billed as unabashedly unscientific and unofficial, we were surprised at just how accurate the 7-Election poll proved in the 2000 election."
I wonder what exactly they mean by this. What exactly was there that was predictable about 2000? It seems they could claim 'accurate' results either way... if they showed Gore winning, they could claim to mirror the popular vote. If they showed Bush winning... they accurately predicted what? A supreme court decision? Hmm.. I coulda sworn I was going somewhere with this.
"And TV's Wil Wheaton? Excuse me! I think you mean Slashdot's Wil Wheaton!"
Captain's log, stardate 3.14159265
Ensign Crusher has been missing for nearly 6 months, which has been confirmed by the lack of entries in his personal log.
Tomorrow, I will instruct Commander Data to assemble an away team to look for our wayward ensign. He's probably hanging out with that Traveller nut again.
Still not Admiral. Riker may be sexier than me.
End log. _________
Seriously though, he's probably staying away from Slashdot because of all the lame Star Trek references.
"I am more in agreement with the Constitutional Party than with the Republicans in many ways, but I feel that especially after the 2000 election, we need to have a decisive victory."
Then why not vote Constitutional, man? Third parties have to start somewhere. The Republicrat duopoly wants you to think they're the only two viable choices. Just look rationally at the issues, and support who you agree with most. That's how it's supposed to work. Hell, you're not even in a swing-state... it's not like your vote will cost Bush California.
What makes electoral-vote.com kind've special is that he's going out on a limb and declaring that "undecided voters" (currently something like 4%) will go out and vote for Kerry by a 2:1 ratio. This has the effect of tipping a number of crucial swing states to Kerry for his final prediction. He makes a pretty good case for this (undecided voters going 2:1 for the challenger) based on historical trends.
This Stanford analysis is based on current polls, and implicitly assumes that undecided voters will remain that way.
I frankly wish they'd ban polling for some period before the election. Might make people more inclined to vote based on issues rather than who they perceive will win.
Move full speed towards renewables. (Yes I am aware of the monumental difficuly and economic chaos, particularly for the US, this will cause)
"The Free Flow of Oil at Market Prices is what the Republicans fought for, and that is what we have. The uncertainty in the Middle East, political instability in Migeria and China's newfound appitite for oil has put a premium on oil prices."
Oil prices are soaring because demand is beginning to overtake supply. Whether you think Peak Oil occurred years ago (as many do, such as Matt Simmons), is occuring now, or will occur in 20 years (as the most optimistic projections say), it WILL happen in our lifetimes. This is a geological fact.
Do you really think if things stabilized in the Middle East, Nigeria, etc, that oil would return to $25 a barrel (like it was just a year ago)? Those days are gone forever. Nothing can stop the continuing rise of oil prices now, except switching to something else.
Similar experience here, made the jump to Turbo Pascal in early high school and never looked back. I really miss Pascal strings and arrays, they were so simple to use compared to say, Java. The 256 char limit and 64K data structure limit were a bitch though. Interestingly enough I was also building a "Zelda-ish" game, but it never went anywhere. Spent most of the time designing tilesets with Improces. (Anyone remember that gem?)
For my final CS project in high school, we had to basically write an interpreter for a small set of assembly instructions. A rudimentary virtual machine, in other words. Well of course the normal approach was a simple text-prompt interface, but I used a shareware graphics library (Fastgraf?) and built a GUI right up from the bare pixel level, with multi-windowing, menu system, illustrated help, 'advanced' features like Start At and Trace, and even user selectable mouse cursors. Ah the memories..;) I also wrote a bunch of graphics demos that I probably still have kickin around.. wonder how'd they run today?:)
Anyway, welcome to Slashdot! Don't feed the trolls.:D
Oh, absolutely. I never claimed the coverage of Nader was good or bad, merely that it existed. The OP seemed to be taking the stance that zero results on CNN for third party candidates is to be expected... I was merely contrasting it directly with Nader to show otherwise.
"The networks are not interested in covering the major party platforms, why on earth would they have the slightest interest in parties with less than 1% of the vote?"
Yet a search for 'badnarik', who is on more ballots and got himself arrested outside a Presidential Debate, returns zero results. Doesn't that strike you as downright impossible if it were covering the election fairly?
Personally, I think that's a pretty critical issue right there. You have to wonder how bad things would be if there was no internet...
Just modern BASICs? Hell, Commodore 64s encoded BASIC instructions as byte codes for the interpreter, and I'm sure it goes farther than that. (Mind you I imagine the lawsuit targets that have made significant money off of BASIC programs are relatively sparse;)
The wording as described seems to be insanely broad and ambiguous:
'The patents describe a method by which a program can "ask for help" from another application to carry out certain computer-oriented functions.'
It's impossible to be precise without knowing the exact method they mean, or the definition of 'certain computer-oriented functions', but it seems reasonable to me that if Java is guity of this behaviour, then Windows or components that use Windows would also apply? In fact probably any OS, or service layer. I mean "Ask for help?" WTF? I wonder why they are going after Sun first. Something specific in the wording of the patent, or maybe they feel this would set the precedent they need to pursue other targets?
Oh, totally unrelated pet peeve about TFA. It says:
"Ironically, the verdict came a day after Sun introduced a new version of Java. The company and some analysts hailed it as one of the most significant upgrades since Java's introduction a decade ago."
That's not irony, just a coincidence. Nothing is contrary to intent.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha! Trick question. You'd have killed yourself years ago.
All impressions of Shatner are uncanny, and it has nothing to do with how accurate they are.
Speaking... ofthegoodCAPtain... Kirk... We've destroyed all documents connecting him to Canada, you can no longer prove he came from here. Still working on Bryan Adams.
PS Villachaize is a frog. (No, not french... a genetic crossbreed)
Flamebait??
It was a joke for fuck's sake. Picture Stephen Colbert reading it. Naked.
Moderators wouldn't know juxtapositional irony if it bit 'em in the ass.
John Kerry
Something I learned this election season is that liberals are always bleeding-heart pussies.
Except when it comes to abortion and stem cell research, in which case they are heartless cold-blooded murderers.
Just practice "Noo doot aboot it, eh?" in front of a mirror, wearing a toque, hockey jersey, and snowshoes, while riding a polar bear, and you'll blend right in. Honest. ;)
"Excellent question. I always thought this was incredibly stupid. I am guessing two possible reasons: 1) His scientists actually were lying to him that they had real weapons programs and potential weapons, therefore he was trying to keep the UN from finding imaginary WMDs. 2) He knew there were no WMDs, but stupidly thought that if the US thought he had them, we would not invade."
3) The fear of his WMDs helped him maintain control of his own population.
"There *is* no good reason to have done what they did."
No, of course there isn't, and those responsible should be punished. (Iraq is not on that list, but that's a whole other thread) But "why" is still an important question and deserves consideration.
If you want to put it to analogies, would a judge or jury sentence a murderer without even ASKING about motive?
Anyway my point is not about questions of guilt, it's merely about the possibility that ONE FACET of your response to 9/11, if you truly have an interest in preventing future acts, might be to consider why they have such murderous hatred, and whether there's any sensible things to do about that? Or does your pride prevent that? You don't really swallow the "they hate our freedoms" crap, do you?
I noticed that Gallup often seemed to be WAY different than other polls (ie back in mid Sept, right after the RNC bounce faded, I recall them putting Bush ahead by 12 points when every other major poll had them in a statistical tie), so I looked into their methodology...
l
They poll based on the previous election's turnout. That is, they start from the assumption that Republican/Democrat turnout (as percentages) in 2004 will be identical to 2000. Since registered Republicans apparently had a higher turnout than registered Democrats in 2000 (40% to 33%), they include proportionately higher numbers of Republicans in their polling sample. That's how they determine their mix of "likely voters". Here's an (admittedly partisan) article on it: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002806.htm
As for what polls electoral-vote.com uses, he always uses polls with the most recent median date.
'And it's people like you who were asking "why do they hate us" after 9/11...'
It's been my experience that people like that never ask "why" at all.
That was my big beef after 9/11... everyone was asking who, what, how, when, and where. Nobody asked why. Retribution completely dominated all thinking.
"I have invested in US companies, but because of the US$ it is no longer profitable to do so. I am in two minds of removing my investments to another market or not. Really depends on this election."
I pulled out of American equity positions a couple months ago. Nothing to do with the dollar, although that is a direct result of the real problem: Soaring oil prices.
This book: The Oil Factor, makes a comprehensive case that the price of oil has dominated the economy for the last 30 years. Basically they suggest that if the price of oil goes up by 80% or more in a year (they recognize putting an exact number on it is impossible, but that's the rule of thumb they settled on), the market will suffer enormous losses and very marginal gains over the next 18 months, based on historical trends. When oil drops, or rises more slowly (about 20% per annum), the situation reverses itself and the stock market will perform very well. All the recessions of the last 30 years (yes, even the dot bomb) have been preceeded by sharp increases in oil. Oil went over the 80% higher threshhold in September.
Now where it gets scary, is that unlike the past, oil will probably NEVER go back down to where it used to be, due to the fact that demand is on the cusp of overtaking supply. "Fear factors" aside, that's the real reason oil keeps climbing and climbing. Google "peak oil" if you don't know about this. It's not some conspiracy theory (although the doomsday predictions of some will make it seem like one), it's a geological certainty.
Since this IS a political thread, I'll throw in a plug.. this (IMO) is another compelling reason to vote against the Bush administration; they're attached to the oil industry at the hip and will NOT vigorously pursue renewables until it's too late. (Many believe it's too late already)
I dunno... but more than half of the 100,000 is supposed to be women and children killed by airstrikes.
"Although billed as unabashedly unscientific and unofficial, we were surprised at just how accurate the 7-Election poll proved in the 2000 election."
I wonder what exactly they mean by this. What exactly was there that was predictable about 2000? It seems they could claim 'accurate' results either way... if they showed Gore winning, they could claim to mirror the popular vote. If they showed Bush winning... they accurately predicted what? A supreme court decision? Hmm.. I coulda sworn I was going somewhere with this.
...on Wikis, please consult this link.
"And TV's Wil Wheaton? Excuse me! I think you mean Slashdot's Wil Wheaton!"
Captain's log, stardate 3.14159265
Ensign Crusher has been missing for nearly 6 months, which has been confirmed by the lack of entries in his personal log.
Tomorrow, I will instruct Commander Data to assemble an away team to look for our wayward ensign. He's probably hanging out with that Traveller nut again.
Still not Admiral. Riker may be sexier than me.
End log.
_________
Seriously though, he's probably staying away from Slashdot because of all the lame Star Trek references.
"I am more in agreement with the Constitutional Party than with the Republicans in many ways, but I feel that especially after the 2000 election, we need to have a decisive victory."
Then why not vote Constitutional, man? Third parties have to start somewhere. The Republicrat duopoly wants you to think they're the only two viable choices. Just look rationally at the issues, and support who you agree with most. That's how it's supposed to work. Hell, you're not even in a swing-state... it's not like your vote will cost Bush California.
What makes electoral-vote.com kind've special is that he's going out on a limb and declaring that "undecided voters" (currently something like 4%) will go out and vote for Kerry by a 2:1 ratio. This has the effect of tipping a number of crucial swing states to Kerry for his final prediction. He makes a pretty good case for this (undecided voters going 2:1 for the challenger) based on historical trends.
This Stanford analysis is based on current polls, and implicitly assumes that undecided voters will remain that way.
I frankly wish they'd ban polling for some period before the election. Might make people more inclined to vote based on issues rather than who they perceive will win.
"While the president insists that he did everything perfectly"
"That is a lie."
The President has been asked directly (3 times, IIRC) to name any mistakes he's made. He couldn't come up with one, large OR small.
Therefore he thinks he's done everything perfectly. Perfection is the absence of mistakes.
I don't understand how you can support someone so obviously incapable of critical self-analysis. Do you think Bush has made zero mistakes?
"As for oil, what else CAN we do."
Move full speed towards renewables. (Yes I am aware of the monumental difficuly and economic chaos, particularly for the US, this will cause)
"The Free Flow of Oil at Market Prices is what the Republicans fought for, and that is what we have. The uncertainty in the Middle East, political instability in Migeria and China's newfound appitite for oil has put a premium on oil prices."
Oil prices are soaring because demand is beginning to overtake supply. Whether you think Peak Oil occurred years ago (as many do, such as Matt Simmons), is occuring now, or will occur in 20 years (as the most optimistic projections say), it WILL happen in our lifetimes. This is a geological fact.
Do you really think if things stabilized in the Middle East, Nigeria, etc, that oil would return to $25 a barrel (like it was just a year ago)? Those days are gone forever. Nothing can stop the continuing rise of oil prices now, except switching to something else.
Similar experience here, made the jump to Turbo Pascal in early high school and never looked back. I really miss Pascal strings and arrays, they were so simple to use compared to say, Java. The 256 char limit and 64K data structure limit were a bitch though. Interestingly enough I was also building a "Zelda-ish" game, but it never went anywhere. Spent most of the time designing tilesets with Improces. (Anyone remember that gem?)
;) I also wrote a bunch of graphics demos that I probably still have kickin around.. wonder how'd they run today? :)
:D
For my final CS project in high school, we had to basically write an interpreter for a small set of assembly instructions. A rudimentary virtual machine, in other words. Well of course the normal approach was a simple text-prompt interface, but I used a shareware graphics library (Fastgraf?) and built a GUI right up from the bare pixel level, with multi-windowing, menu system, illustrated help, 'advanced' features like Start At and Trace, and even user selectable mouse cursors. Ah the memories..
Anyway, welcome to Slashdot! Don't feed the trolls.
Oh get with the times. I middle-clicked the new tab I opened. Navigating "Back" to anything is soooo 2002. ;D
Oh, absolutely. I never claimed the coverage of Nader was good or bad, merely that it existed. The OP seemed to be taking the stance that zero results on CNN for third party candidates is to be expected... I was merely contrasting it directly with Nader to show otherwise.
"The networks are not interested in covering the major party platforms, why on earth would they have the slightest interest in parties with less than 1% of the vote?"
I don't know, but I do know that a search on CNN.com for 'nader' returns 530 results.
Yet a search for 'badnarik', who is on more ballots and got himself arrested outside a Presidential Debate, returns zero results. Doesn't that strike you as downright impossible if it were covering the election fairly?
Personally, I think that's a pretty critical issue right there. You have to wonder how bad things would be if there was no internet...
We go around asking people, "Are you the enemy? Whoever says yes, we shoot them." ;)
Just modern BASICs? Hell, Commodore 64s encoded BASIC instructions as byte codes for the interpreter, and I'm sure it goes farther than that. (Mind you I imagine the lawsuit targets that have made significant money off of BASIC programs are relatively sparse ;)
The wording as described seems to be insanely broad and ambiguous:
'The patents describe a method by which a program can "ask for help" from another application to carry out certain computer-oriented functions.'
It's impossible to be precise without knowing the exact method they mean, or the definition of 'certain computer-oriented functions', but it seems reasonable to me that if Java is guity of this behaviour, then Windows or components that use Windows would also apply? In fact probably any OS, or service layer. I mean "Ask for help?" WTF? I wonder why they are going after Sun first. Something specific in the wording of the patent, or maybe they feel this would set the precedent they need to pursue other targets?
Oh, totally unrelated pet peeve about TFA. It says:
"Ironically, the verdict came a day after Sun introduced a new version of Java. The company and some analysts hailed it as one of the most significant upgrades since Java's introduction a decade ago."
That's not irony, just a coincidence. Nothing is contrary to intent.