SICP is one of the best computer science books out there. My Freshman cosi class was in scheme with that book. It was great. I think I learned more about computing in that book than in many other places. I wish I had my copy handy quite often, even if i don't use scheme very much.
MP3 may not be perfect as a format, but in general it is "Good Enough". It does the job, sure some other format may have sound thats a little better, or files that are a little smaller or something else over mp3, but not enough better to justify changing. A lot of people have spend money on mp3 players, have collected a lot of mp3s etc. To convince them to move to something new, that something has to have a feature thats a LOT better then mp3. I don't see anything out there that will do that now.
Its worse in some places, where sports teams and political parties are very much affiliated. I don't think its generally true in the USA that Team X's supporters are democrats and team Y's are republicans. Here in Israel it very much is, or at least used to be. The Hapoel teams are very much affiliated with the labor party and the Beitar teams with the Likud and so on. This is true for much of Europe, and was much more true at least in Israel back in the 50's. I remember an article about it saying that the only way a Hapoel Jerusalem team would root for Beitar Jerusalem was if they were playin the Wermact vetrans team. And then only just. OK thats a bit of an exaduration, but only a bit.
Well i use both to be honest. VNC has a few major features I like. For one thing I can get a full KDE Or Gnome Desktop. I can also shut down the mac and leave the KDE session running. I can also move the session between any of several screens.
On the minus side the way I have things right now I only have 15 bit color over VNC, when I tried to put it to 24 bit mode it gave me very strange colors.
I've wondered that as well. I have 3 computers on my desk, 2 run Mac OS 10.3, and the 3rd runs linux. I access the linux via VNC from one or the other of the macs. The thing is that there are a number of apps on the mac that are just better than anything else out there, at least as far as some of the things I want to do. I have never found linux apps that are as good as iTunes or iPhoto.
I don't think its posible to make it 100% imposible to screw up a ballot. People are just really good at screwing things up. In every election there are always a few ballots over which people fight. That was not strange in the 2000 election. Its just that normally they don't determine the outcome of the race.
Can it see if a bag contains a bomb or some one's school books from outside? That would be useful. I have lost count of how many times I have been held up because someone left a bag somewhere and they had to call in the bomb squad to see if it is a bomb or someone's laundry/groceries/school books etc. This is not a place where you want false negatives!
I think its some of both, but more number 2. Systems and not just computer systems. Have bugs. A good way to reduce the number of bugs is to make the system as simple as you can. You will alway have some number of mis votes where someone checks the wrong box or something, but if you make the system simple you will hopefully minimise that.
Also remember that election systems like this are used by a huge number of people once ever few years. So you want the system to be quick to use, cheap and simple as people only see it ever so often.
I really think the old paper balots where the best bet. When I lived in New Hampshire you filled in a paper balot and they fed it into a machine to be counted. (Think SAT tests here). THe computer counted it, but if they had to I am sure that they could re-do it by hand.
It was easy, cheap and low tech. I really think much of this e-voting a solution looking for a problem.
I don't object to small parties in general. In fact I think they are a great idea. What I object to is the fact that in the USA the small parties mostly act like they are the big parties and fail at it.
I live in Israel, which is a country with a party list system. The way it works is that there are 120 seats in the Kenesset (Our parlament). At each election each party publishes a list of canidates. You vote for a party. For each X votes a party gets they get one seat in the Kenesset.
What this means is that in any given session of the kenesset there are about 12-15 parties, none with a majority. So whichever party has the most seats (Currently Ariel Sharon's Likud) has to try to rope in other parties until they have 61 seats.
This is less then ideal for several reasons. First of all there is no accountability. In the USA I can say that person X is my congressman and If I don't like him I can vote for the other guy. In Israel I have no choice what so ever in how a given party picks its canidates. Nor is there somone who represents my district, as there is no such thing. Also once you get above some number (about #15) on one of the big party lists you are going to get in. The chance that Shimon Peres will be in the next kenesset is 100%, unless he choses to retire.
This system also makes it imposible to balance a budget as each party demads that their projects ge funded, or they will bolt, ensuring that we get new elections.
A lot of folks in the USA assume that if we just changed the way we voted that it would fix all of the problems. It woundn't, it would just shuffle them around. As long as you have an elected president and not a PM elected by congress you have a winner take all system. This is going to favor a few big parties. If you state that you must win a majority (In this case of the electoral vote) you will push this even farther. If there were 4 "major" canidates for president it would ensure that congress picked. In Israel land of many many parties only 2 have ever had one of their members elected Prime Minister Labor/Mapai and Likud.
OK, I didn't know that, but what I said is still true in outline. I live in Israel, land of many small parties, many of whom know how to play the system very well. Here the small parties know they won't get their guy to be PM, but if they join a colalition they may get one of their guys to be a minister of something, and therefore they will be able to do some of the things they care about.
I am not in Oregon, what is PGE? and what is PUD? There are far to many TLA's in the world, and I can only keep track of so many.
Why are Nader voters and his party so cluess?
on
The Hidden Swing State?
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
I have been wondering this for a while...
Why is it that Ralph Nader and his supporters are doing thier best to ingore how the US Electoral system acutally works? The chance that Ralph Nader will be elected president is exactly 0. In spending his political capital running for an office he can not posibly win he is insuring a minimal return on investment. Which is to say that the ideals that he stands for will not have someone to actually push them in any sort of elected capacity. If he were to spend his time trying to get elected to lower offices such as a state legislative seat. Then he may be able to make some of his adjenda happen.
If the Green party where to run a number of people for various state level posts and win a few key races they might be in a position to tilt a majority one way or the other here and there. Having that ability will lead to real if limited power. A party that can deliver a enough votes in a legislative body to tilt the ballance to one side or another can negotiate to get some of there ideal implemented. Not all but some.
A party that runs someone for president and gets 2% of the vote in the US has no ability to do anything of use. The mesure of success of a political party is its ability to take the things it stands for and do them. At that level the US green party is a stunning falure.
The USA has never faced the level of threat that Israel faces. The USA has had a few very large terorist events (Oklahoma city, 9/11 etc). Israel has faced an ongoing threat that at various points has resulted in several attacks a week. Would I like to not have to show some random guy what's in my bad 4 times a day, yes that would be nice. If nothing else it would mean less time waiting on line and less money spent on guards. But on the other hand I would prefer to know that some random guy wandering threw the mall or central bus station is not going to blow himself up and take 15 people with him.
And Yes the Israeli government does listen to our court. When the court says move the fence, they move it. My point was not that Israel is an ideal case, we are not. But we have undergone 54 years of war and 4 years of a solid attempt to destory us, and we have not become a dictatorship nor shut down all the private newspapers (the Israeli press is loud and diverse).
And despite lots of accusations to the contrary. Israel has not banned arabs from pretty much any of public life. All 6 Israeli universities have Arab students, an Arab team won the Israeli football league this year, there are Arabs in the Kenesset. And everytime I go downtown I see arabs shopping along the main streats and in the malls.
121.5 is very well monitored. For one thing almost any aircraft that has a radio that its not using for something else will probably have it on the guard frequency. This is a post 9/11 thing for the most part but a good one. IF you do broadcast on 121.5 every airliner up at 35,000 ft within a few hundred miles may hear you. One of them will relay your message to someone who can help you. Thats a very good thing!
On the minus side sometimes a pilot will broadcast on 121.5 becuase he thought he was trasnmitting on the other radio. (Been there, done that)
Arabs who are Citizans of Israel are alowed to vote. There are 3 Arab parties in the Kennest. Arabs who live in the teratories are not citizens of Israel. They can in theory vote in PA elections.
You know it is posible to have democracy and security at the same time. Its not easy but it can be done. I live in Israel and we somehow manage to have a multi party democracy (I think there are 14 parties in the current kenneset). WE have a supreme court that can and does tell the goverment to go take a hike from time to time, and the goverment listens! We also have 10 or so different papers, if you think Israel does not have a free press read Haaretz and Eretz Sheva and compare (the first is left wing the 2nd far right wing)
Now living here you get used to people searching your bag every so often. And lots of soldiers walking around with M-16s. But dang it, I'm convinced that whenever we have our next exctions they will go pretty well, I'm less sure abuot he USA on that one.
True many of the Gnome/KDE apps are not up to their MacOS X or Windows equivalents. I personally use a mix of OS X and linux, but they are getting better fast. 4 years ago MySQL was not really production ready and now its damn good. The thing is most complex code takes time to mature, which many of the linux apps just haven't had yet.
It would have to be a hell of a laser, with a very good targeting system. Chances are it will just heat up the gas bag by a few degrees. The atmoshphere will ensure that a laser will not stay at one spot on the ship, so it really won't do much.
Well commercial bread has other issues like chemicals to make it last longer. Actually I live in Israel where you can get some great bread for cheap, i can get 30 pittot (Thats the plaurel of Pita) for 10 shekels which is like $2.25 US, and they are still warm out of the oven.
But when I bake I often use 4 things... Flour, water, salt and starter or yeast. Sometimes I will add spices or honey or whatever, but often not.
I'm not a brewer, but I do bake a lot of bread, and often a slow rise with sourdough makes the best bread. The goal is not just to break down the sugar but to produce flavor as you do it. As for yeast it will make itself in great quantities if you are brewing or baking.
I also have a vonage phone, and I love it. The main feature that I like about it is that it is a 646 (New York) area code. THis is very useful as much of both my family and my wife's live in the greater New York area, we live in Israel. Its not perfect if the power in my house fails it goes out (this happens often enough, though never when I have actually been on the phone). And if I am downloading stuff it gets rather choppy. We both have cell phones as well as a Bezek land line (Bezek is Israel's phone company).
THe funny thing is that there are some friends here in Israel who we will call via the US line.
I also have had it bridged to the bezek line via a 2 line phone which allows confrence calls, which is just kind of cool.
I have seen a lot of Americans wishing for a different electoral system. I guess the theory is that if it was only this way or that it would be perfect. Its not so, I'm told that you can prove this fact but I have no idea.
The issues with the American electoral system stem from several facts.
1) The presidency is a directly elected (mostly) post. Only one person can be president, and he is selected by the electoral college. This tends to shape the way the large parties act and cast themselves.
2) The Small parties have no clue. The various small parties (Libertarian, Green etc) insist on acting like small versions of the big parties, and failing at it rather badly. (I define sucess in politics as getting your people elected and your ideas in effect). If the small parties would act like small parties do in the rest of the world they would probably have much more luck.
I live in Israel, land of many many parties. The small parties know that they will never get their guy to be Prime Minister, but if they get a few seats in the Kenesset (Our parlament) they may be able to get some of the things they want done.
If the US Libertarian party would take their resources and spend them running people for county commisioner and the state legislator etc they may be able to get a few people elected. If things are split between the 2 main parties they may even be able to use a few seats to get some of the things they want pushed threw. Not all of what they want, and not every time. Some of the things that they want some of the time. Yes it means playing the horse trading game, but thats democracy for you. I'll support you on X, you support me on Y.
I wish the parties in the USA would figure this out.
When I lived in the UK I had a friend who at some point did not have a TV, and he kept getting letters from the TV Licence people demanding that he pay for a licence.
I think what the van's do is go down the streets with a list of who has a licence and try to find anyone who doesn't.
A friend of mine reports that her dog has been doing the job quite well. When the baby needs something the dog barks then goes an gets mom to go look after the funny looking "puppy". She didn't train the dog for this, he just took on the job.
I skiped the whole thing and started with step kids who are already teens.
Slashdot Mirror
SICP is one of the best computer science books out there. My Freshman cosi class was in scheme with that book. It was great. I think I learned more about computing in that book than in many other places. I wish I had my copy handy quite often, even if i don't use scheme very much.
MP3 may not be perfect as a format, but in general it is "Good Enough". It does the job, sure some other format may have sound thats a little better, or files that are a little smaller or something else over mp3, but not enough better to justify changing. A lot of people have spend money on mp3 players, have collected a lot of mp3s etc. To convince them to move to something new, that something has to have a feature thats a LOT better then mp3. I don't see anything out there that will do that now.
Its worse in some places, where sports teams and political parties are very much affiliated. I don't think its generally true in the USA that Team X's supporters are democrats and team Y's are republicans. Here in Israel it very much is, or at least used to be. The Hapoel teams are very much affiliated with the labor party and the Beitar teams with the Likud and so on. This is true for much of Europe, and was much more true at least in Israel back in the 50's. I remember an article about it saying that the only way a Hapoel Jerusalem team would root for Beitar Jerusalem was if they were playin the Wermact vetrans team. And then only just. OK thats a bit of an exaduration, but only a bit.
Well i use both to be honest. VNC has a few major features I like. For one thing I can get a full KDE Or Gnome Desktop. I can also shut down the mac and leave the KDE session running. I can also move the session between any of several screens.
On the minus side the way I have things right now I only have 15 bit color over VNC, when I tried to put it to 24 bit mode it gave me very strange colors.
I've wondered that as well. I have 3 computers on my desk, 2 run Mac OS 10.3, and the 3rd runs linux. I access the linux via VNC from one or the other of the macs. The thing is that there are a number of apps on the mac that are just better than anything else out there, at least as far as some of the things I want to do. I have never found linux apps that are as good as iTunes or iPhoto.
I don't think its posible to make it 100% imposible to screw up a ballot. People are just really good at screwing things up. In every election there are always a few ballots over which people fight. That was not strange in the 2000 election. Its just that normally they don't determine the outcome of the race.
Can it see if a bag contains a bomb or some one's school books from outside? That would be useful. I have lost count of how many times I have been held up because someone left a bag somewhere and they had to call in the bomb squad to see if it is a bomb or someone's laundry/groceries/school books etc. This is not a place where you want false negatives!
I think its some of both, but more number 2. Systems and not just computer systems. Have bugs. A good way to reduce the number of bugs is to make the system as simple as you can. You will alway have some number of mis votes where someone checks the wrong box or something, but if you make the system simple you will hopefully minimise that.
Also remember that election systems like this are used by a huge number of people once ever few years. So you want the system to be quick to use, cheap and simple as people only see it ever so often.
I really think the old paper balots where the best bet. When I lived in New Hampshire you filled in a paper balot and they fed it into a machine to be counted. (Think SAT tests here). THe computer counted it, but if they had to I am sure that they could re-do it by hand.
It was easy, cheap and low tech. I really think much of this e-voting a solution looking for a problem.
I don't object to small parties in general. In fact I think they are a great idea. What I object to is the fact that in the USA the small parties mostly act like they are the big parties and fail at it.
I live in Israel, which is a country with a party list system. The way it works is that there are 120 seats in the Kenesset (Our parlament). At each election each party publishes a list of canidates. You vote for a party. For each X votes a party gets they get one seat in the Kenesset.
What this means is that in any given session of the kenesset there are about 12-15 parties, none with a majority. So whichever party has the most seats (Currently Ariel Sharon's Likud) has to try to rope in other parties until they have 61 seats.
This is less then ideal for several reasons. First of all there is no accountability. In the USA I can say that person X is my congressman and If I don't like him I can vote for the other guy. In Israel I have no choice what so ever in how a given party picks its canidates. Nor is there somone who represents my district, as there is no such thing. Also once you get above some number (about #15) on one of the big party lists you are going to get in. The chance that Shimon Peres will be in the next kenesset is 100%, unless he choses to retire.
This system also makes it imposible to balance a budget as each party demads that their projects ge funded, or they will bolt, ensuring that we get new elections.
A lot of folks in the USA assume that if we just changed the way we voted that it would fix all of the problems. It woundn't, it would just shuffle them around. As long as you have an elected president and not a PM elected by congress you have a winner take all system. This is going to favor a few big parties. If you state that you must win a majority (In this case of the electoral vote) you will push this even farther. If there were 4 "major" canidates for president it would ensure that congress picked. In Israel land of many many parties only 2 have ever had one of their members elected Prime Minister Labor/Mapai and Likud.
OK, I didn't know that, but what I said is still true in outline. I live in Israel, land of many small parties, many of whom know how to play the system very well. Here the small parties know they won't get their guy to be PM, but if they join a colalition they may get one of their guys to be a minister of something, and therefore they will be able to do some of the things they care about.
I am not in Oregon, what is PGE? and what is PUD? There are far to many TLA's in the world, and I can only keep track of so many.
I have been wondering this for a while...
Why is it that Ralph Nader and his supporters are doing thier best to ingore how the US Electoral system acutally works? The chance that Ralph Nader will be elected president is exactly 0. In spending his political capital running for an office he can not posibly win he is insuring a minimal return on investment. Which is to say that the ideals that he stands for will not have someone to actually push them in any sort of elected capacity. If he were to spend his time trying to get elected to lower offices such as a state legislative seat. Then he may be able to make some of his adjenda happen.
If the Green party where to run a number of people for various state level posts and win a few key races they might be in a position to tilt a majority one way or the other here and there. Having that ability will lead to real if limited power. A party that can deliver a enough votes in a legislative body to tilt the ballance to one side or another can negotiate to get some of there ideal implemented. Not all but some.
A party that runs someone for president and gets 2% of the vote in the US has no ability to do anything of use. The mesure of success of a political party is its ability to take the things it stands for and do them. At that level the US green party is a stunning falure.
Your right, but then again your aren't.
The USA has never faced the level of threat that Israel faces. The USA has had a few very large terorist events (Oklahoma city, 9/11 etc). Israel has faced an ongoing threat that at various points has resulted in several attacks a week. Would I like to not have to show some random guy what's in my bad 4 times a day, yes that would be nice. If nothing else it would mean less time waiting on line and less money spent on guards. But on the other hand I would prefer to know that some random guy wandering threw the mall or central bus station is not going to blow himself up and take 15 people with him.
And Yes the Israeli government does listen to our court. When the court says move the fence, they move it. My point was not that Israel is an ideal case, we are not. But we have undergone 54 years of war and 4 years of a solid attempt to destory us, and we have not become a dictatorship nor shut down all the private newspapers (the Israeli press is loud and diverse).
And despite lots of accusations to the contrary. Israel has not banned arabs from pretty much any of public life. All 6 Israeli universities have Arab students, an Arab team won the Israeli football league this year, there are Arabs in the Kenesset. And everytime I go downtown I see arabs shopping along the main streats and in the malls.
121.5 is very well monitored. For one thing almost any aircraft that has a radio that its not using for something else will probably have it on the guard frequency. This is a post 9/11 thing for the most part but a good one. IF you do broadcast on 121.5 every airliner up at 35,000 ft within a few hundred miles may hear you. One of them will relay your message to someone who can help you. Thats a very good thing!
On the minus side sometimes a pilot will broadcast on 121.5 becuase he thought he was trasnmitting on the other radio. (Been there, done that)
Arabs who are Citizans of Israel are alowed to vote. There are 3 Arab parties in the Kennest. Arabs who live in the teratories are not citizens of Israel. They can in theory vote in PA elections.
You know it is posible to have democracy and security at the same time. Its not easy but it can be done. I live in Israel and we somehow manage to have a multi party democracy (I think there are 14 parties in the current kenneset). WE have a supreme court that can and does tell the goverment to go take a hike from time to time, and the goverment listens! We also have 10 or so different papers, if you think Israel does not have a free press read Haaretz and Eretz Sheva and compare (the first is left wing the 2nd far right wing)
Now living here you get used to people searching your bag every so often. And lots of soldiers walking around with M-16s. But dang it, I'm convinced that whenever we have our next exctions they will go pretty well, I'm less sure abuot he USA on that one.
True many of the Gnome/KDE apps are not up to their MacOS X or Windows equivalents. I personally use a mix of OS X and linux, but they are getting better fast. 4 years ago MySQL was not really production ready and now its damn good. The thing is most complex code takes time to mature, which many of the linux apps just haven't had yet.
It would have to be a hell of a laser, with a very good targeting system. Chances are it will just heat up the gas bag by a few degrees. The atmoshphere will ensure that a laser will not stay at one spot on the ship, so it really won't do much.
Well commercial bread has other issues like chemicals to make it last longer. Actually I live in Israel where you can get some great bread for cheap, i can get 30 pittot (Thats the plaurel of Pita) for 10 shekels which is like $2.25 US, and they are still warm out of the oven.
But when I bake I often use 4 things... Flour, water, salt and starter or yeast. Sometimes I will add spices or honey or whatever, but often not.
Actually I have done some brewing as well
OOOH --- Fast Yak Piss! now thats a sales pitch.
I'm not a brewer, but I do bake a lot of bread, and often a slow rise with sourdough makes the best bread. The goal is not just to break down the sugar but to produce flavor as you do it. As for yeast it will make itself in great quantities if you are brewing or baking.
I also have a vonage phone, and I love it. The main feature that I like about it is that it is a 646 (New York) area code. THis is very useful as much of both my family and my wife's live in the greater New York area, we live in Israel. Its not perfect if the power in my house fails it goes out (this happens often enough, though never when I have actually been on the phone). And if I am downloading stuff it gets rather choppy. We both have cell phones as well as a Bezek land line (Bezek is Israel's phone company).
THe funny thing is that there are some friends here in Israel who we will call via the US line.
I also have had it bridged to the bezek line via a 2 line phone which allows confrence calls, which is just kind of cool.
I have seen a lot of Americans wishing for a different electoral system. I guess the theory is that if it was only this way or that it would be perfect. Its not so, I'm told that you can prove this fact but I have no idea.
The issues with the American electoral system stem from several facts.
1) The presidency is a directly elected (mostly) post. Only one person can be president, and he is selected by the electoral college. This tends to shape the way the large parties act and cast themselves.
2) The Small parties have no clue. The various small parties (Libertarian, Green etc) insist on acting like small versions of the big parties, and failing at it rather badly. (I define sucess in politics as getting your people elected and your ideas in effect). If the small parties would act like small parties do in the rest of the world they would probably have much more luck.
I live in Israel, land of many many parties. The small parties know that they will never get their guy to be Prime Minister, but if they get a few seats in the Kenesset (Our parlament) they may be able to get some of the things they want done.
If the US Libertarian party would take their resources and spend them running people for county commisioner and the state legislator etc they may be able to get a few people elected. If things are split between the 2 main parties they may even be able to use a few seats to get some of the things they want pushed threw. Not all of what they want, and not every time. Some of the things that they want some of the time. Yes it means playing the horse trading game, but thats democracy for you. I'll support you on X, you support me on Y.
I wish the parties in the USA would figure this out.
When I lived in the UK I had a friend who at some point did not have a TV, and he kept getting letters from the TV Licence people demanding that he pay for a licence.
I think what the van's do is go down the streets with a list of who has a licence and try to find anyone who doesn't.
A friend of mine reports that her dog has been doing the job quite well. When the baby needs something the dog barks then goes an gets mom to go look after the funny looking "puppy". She didn't train the dog for this, he just took on the job.
I skiped the whole thing and started with step kids who are already teens.