I know that what they are doing is legal. It is at least arguable that it is ethical. It is undoubtable, however, that it is hostile to a group of customers. Or, possibly now, ex-customers. Or at least ex-potential customers. (I don't suppose that would be sufficient grounds to go through the hassle of returning an already purchased machine. Merely grounds not to buy one.)
Many of the policies advocated for combatting global warming are "environment theater" combined with pork-barrel politics. That's hard to argue with. CO2 should be dealt with using a Carbon tax. Buying tickets to pollute is just begging for ineffective programs, corruption, and favortism.
Also, it's already too late to avoid major damage, so at least half the effort should go into ameliorating the effects that are already showing up, or will soon show up. Sea level rise is one that's going to require major funding to deal with, and just how it should be dealt with isn't clear. Restoring beaches is "environmental theater", however. It only works in the absence of sea level rise....and it's already risen.
N.B.: Global warming doesn't mean local warming. In one past episode of global warming Europe and the eastern US entered a mini-ice age. (That was apparently caused by a large fresh water lake created by melting glaciers spilling into the Atlantic, but Greenland melting might well do the same job. And it appears to be melting right now. OTOH, it seems to be a more gradual influx of fresh water, so maybe it won't do the same thing. I'm no climate modeler.) P.S.: If you want to check out what I'm talking about, search for "The Younger Dryas" and for comparison "The Older Dryas".
You clearly haven't been following crop failures, though I'll admit that turning chicken corn into ethanol is one of the stupider ideas. It's not economic, and it shortens the supply of food. But it's the crop failures that are the real problem. You'll probably notice it later this year or early next year, when the stockpiles start to run low, so the price goes up. Some people have already noticed it. Suicide is rising among Indian farmers, e.g., because of crop failures. I don't know who is most affected by the failure of the Russian wheat harvest, and I don't know who is most affected by this years failure of the US wheat harvest.
Please note: Failure doesn't mean that no grain was harvested. It means that a LOT less than expected was harvested. And in the cases that I mentioned it can be clearly laid at the foot of unfavorable weather. (I'm not sure what the US corn harvest was like. If it hit the headlines, I missed it.) I seem to recall that Europe had some crop failures this year too, but I can't remember what they were, however Europe on the west side of the Caucasas isn't a big grain producer. I think I heard that Greece and Spain had some sort of crop failure.
And that's all in the last year. (Though possibly the suicides among Indian farmers date back before then, and I only saw the report this year.)
I don't think that the A-10 rocket was EVER approaching ready. The Saturn was a development of the V-2 (I forget what it's German designation was) but the A-10 was just abandoned. This was probably because it would have required transistors to work properly. Vacuum tubes are ok in a stable environment, but under heavy shocks they tend to lose their filaments. Some will continue to work, as proximity fuses proved, but I suspect that complex circuits were too unreliable to use.
FWIW, apparently the Germans had radar too. Neither side knew that the other had it (though the Allies found out first). Which is really strange, when the Germans were on the offensive first.
As the attack shifted, and the Allies began aerial attacks on Germany, they started using chaff to block the German radar.
You are ignoring the difference in size of production facilities.
That said, if Hitler had continued to get Chamerlain type responses from his opponents, his side would have won the war. But I'm not really sure he could even have won against Russia alone.
But Einstein was not ineffective as a scientist. It's true he was unable to accept quantum theory, but it was his attacks that turned it into a massively successful theory. (Admittedly, most of what I know about that was from after the war, but also note that he was a theoretician rather than an engineer, so to expect him to directly participate in building an atomic reactor is unreasonable.)
For that matter, it was some of Einstein's attacks on quantum theory that lead to the laser and to concentrations of atoms all in the same quantum state (sorry, can't remember the name at the moment...not even well enough to google it)
Obama has indeed not been a strong president. I credit this to his not wanting to push the proposals he want to be seen as favoring, but it's possible that he really just has not strong political feelings.
He still appears better than Romney. Mind you, that's not saying very much.
I'm considering the possibility that the Republicans are proposing candidates who are more and more impressively right-wing whackos as a "Tactics of Distraction" kind of thing, to manuver the Democrats more and more right, until the Republicans can propose a centrist candidate and sweep the election. Either that, or they're aiming for a dictatorship and don't care who the dictator is. (And it's quite plausible that their backers might not care who the dictator was, as long as he followed orders.)
I was, indeed, quite offended by many aspects of that story. But it's still a good story. Not, however, up the "Out of the Silent Planet", or "The Screwtape Letters"
When answering, please consider the debt that a college loan entails, and the rapid ongoing automation of all feasible jobs...to the extend that workers in China are being replaced by robots.
Not that I disagree with your conclusions, but you mistate the problem.
The Republicans favor tax cuts FOR THE WEALTHY. The Democrats favor spending more ON THE IMPOVERISHED. Both sides want to spend more on the military, though the Republicans are slightly more eager. Both sides want to claim to cut taxes, though the Republicans are much more eager. Neither side wants to acknowledge a tax rise, though the Democrats are slightly more willing.
The last time the budget came close to being balanced was under a Democrat. I believe (though I'm not sure) that it was starting to pay off the national debt that caused the orchestrated attempt to get him impeached. (Yes, he was indeed corrupt. *IF* we've had a president in my lifetime who wasn't corrupt, it was Eisenhower, and I've my suspicions about him.)
That's not actually true. But the amount they give doesn't approach the amount that the churches save by not paying taxes.
That said, some of the churches DO serve useful purposes WRT charity. And some of them are acutally net positive contributions to society. Most of the others are not massive drags.
I haven't been able to measure in my mind whether (ignoring the fundies) the churches are a benefit to society or not. One of my neighbors was massively helped by the congregation of which she was a member, before I even knew she had a problem That said, there are lots of people within five blocks of here that depend utterly on government assist.. They couldn't pay their rent without it, much less buy food or medical care. And they aren't being helped by the churches. But many homeless in truely destitute condition are helped by missionary churches, self-serving as they are.
Sorry, it isn't (necessarily) really a collaborative effort. It's just that each side is so totally focused on the short term that when they get in their focus is on "extending our political power". So it's *as if* it were a collaborative effort.
Sorry, but college degrees DEFINITELY correlate with educated. And the correlation is strongly positive.
I will agree that this doesn't imply that college degrees correlate with smart, particularly without a good working definition of smart. They are negatively correlated with creativity, e.g.
Please note that these two correlations have not significantly altered in the last few centuries, presuming that you are, in each case, comparing against an appropriate control group. This isn't to say that the percentage of the population being so educated has remained constant. It hasn't. But that is a totally separate argument.
Let me guess...you're in your twenties or early thirties.
libertarianism is unstable.(The lower case "l" is intentional, as I'm not talking about the party.) Well, more unstable, all governments are unstable. I'm in favor of liberalism, because given the current state of the government, that a place that's relatively easy to transition to. Many of the tennants of libertarianism are compatible with liberalism, so it possible to transition to a libertarianistic liberalism from a centrist liberalism.
(A long justification follows, with some digressions on stability of various governmental types) In each case you've got to figure the plausible trasition states unless you are advocating violent revolution. That often makes drastic changes, but very rarely of a desireable nature.
So the real question is "What plausible transitions are there from a statist-authoritarian-rightist government. (And I consider Democrats to be a rightist party.)
Some of the constraints are that the population typically lives in large clusters with rapid transport and communication. This makes many possible transition states so unstable as to collapse nearly immediately into some other near-by state. Anarchy, e.g., would immediately collapse into warlordism. If the warlordism was stable enough, it would evolve into feudalism, but given rapid transport and communication, it's not stable enough. Unless and exterior authority intervened it would probably oscillate back and forth between warlordism and short episodes of anarchy until the rapid transportation and communication broke down. Then the warlordism might evolve into feudalism, or possibly directly into monarchy (if the warlords had rapid transportation). Etc.
In our current society there are other stable states...but anarchy isn't one of them. Dictatorship is stable, and it can evolve into monarchy which can evolve into limited monarchy, which can probably evolve into some flavor of democracy. But I really doubt that society would be stable for long enough for that to happen.
Another transition is from autocratic-authoritarian to liberal-authoritarian to liberal-libertarian...with the libertarianism being very constrained. E.g., I can see unregulated access to drugs as being stable, but I have a hard time seeing unregulated access to weapons as being stable. The factor enabling unregulated access to drugs to be stable is that it would allow the populace to sedate themselves. (N.B.: Alcohol is a very poor choice for a drug to allow to be unregulated. It MUST be largely unregulated, however, because it is popular with a very influential segment of society, and forbidding it cause massive social upheaval. Marijuana is much better, as it sedates. Opiates, again, should probably not be regulated...but allowing it to be unregulated requires acceptance of a large number of suicides via overdose...often unintentional. LSD is relatively harmless, but tends to loosen social conditioning. In a libertarian setting this is basically harmless, unless you count people choosing to harm themselves.) Authoritarian regeimes often feel the need for sumptary laws...but note that other authoritarian regeimes coesist happily with many drugs that act to sedate to populace. Cocoa (unprocessed, and containing cocaine) was used by Aztec slaves, as opium was used by Greek and Roman slaves, to make their lot endurable. However such regeimes cannot abide "psychedelics", at least if not administered in a controlled religious setting. (I'm being a bit general here. Historical background doesn't really justify all this.) In this case by religious I essential mean a setting that is used to justify the current government. Explicit spiritual meaning is not a requirement, but it exists in all historical settings with which I am familiar.
OTOH: Rapid changes of state between approximately equally stable states (of government) can happen very rapidly, and without much drama. (Here I'm not counting the collapse of the Soviet Union as being "without much dra
Calling the Democrats the party of "Hate" and "racism" is weird. They ARE one of the two main parties favoring centralized authoritarian government, but they aren't the ones pushing hate and racism.
FWIW, I didn't vote Democratic, because I couldn't force myself to vote for a president that signed a bill giving himself the right to order any citizen killed without trial. He's got many other major flaws, starting with the way he voted for secret courts back while he was a Senator, but I might have overlooked those to oppose Romney (who is even worse, and is supported by followers who are worse than he is...well, that can be said of everyone, but still...).
As to the integrity of the election...I truely doubt it, but when the exit polls agree with the tallied vote, there isn't that much basis for the doubt, if, that is, all qualified voters who desired to vote were allowed to vote (and not duped out of their right). FWIW, I heard many stories of Republicans suborning the vote by convincing qualified voters to not vote. I didn't hear any such stories about the Democrats. Well, stories aren't proof, and anyone can make claims. But it raises a lot of suspicion in my mind as to just *who* tampered with the vote, and just *how* it was done. That said, in the prior election BOTH sides were shown to have tampered with the vote. I don't recall that it was ever have shown that it changed a result, however (even though there were various suspicions raised).
Yet again, a supreme court decision sealing a vote so that it couldn't be examined sticks in my mind, and I *DEFINITELY* count that as Republican vote tampering. There's no way of knowing whether it would have changed the result. But it seems that the government's desife is to not consider the problem. To make a decision, and then PRETEND that it was the decision of the voters, whether that was the actual vote or not. IIRC the supreme court explicitly said that the reason for it's decision was so that a decison could be reached NOW without regard to whether or not it was correct. And to prevent it from being challenged by sealing the evidence.
So I consider BOTH parties to be complicit in voter fraud, on the basis of past elections.
Define adequate. If the Window Manager is using a resource, then my programs can't. I basically turn off all special effects, because they're ususally hidden, and when they show up, they're either distracting or they actively get in the way. Static images are fine, and I prefer that a button signal that it's changed state while it's being pressed. And I want a visible cursor. Outside of that...
That said, I do like having different types of files have different icons, and it's useful if graphics files present a small thumbnail. But note that these are STATIC. (Well, counting the button press, minimal.) They bloody well DON'T require a GPU.
I'll agree that the Gnome devs went out of their way to make it ugly and hard to stand using, but at least it would run on my system, which is more than I can say for the non-fallback mode.
I used to occasionally log into it to accomplish something that was easier to do in Gnome-fallback than in xfce or LXDE. Looks like this won't be happening any more, and I will no longer be able to tell people that an application will work with Gnome.
I'd been running Gnome2 ever since KDE3 was pulled from the repository. I can't run Gnome3...but I can run KDE4. Guess which I'll choose? (Yeah, I also like xfce and LXDE, but my wife wouldn't.)
I preferred Gnome2 to either KDE4 or xfce or LXDE. I still do, but it isn't in the repository. That I've currently moved to KDE4 is not a statement of preference.
OTOH, I will admit that I preferred KDE3 to Gnome2. KDE3 was possibly the best WM I've ever used. I was (and am) disgusted with the change to KDE4. (I understand that the libraries are better. This may be so. The interface is lots worse. Enough worse that Gnome2 was better.)
Gnome3 stands out as a LOUSY desktop. It's up there with Microsoft Bob.
I tried Mint Mate a few months ago, and while I found it better than Gnome3 (fallback), I didn't find it as good as either xfce or LXDE. This, however, may have been Mint rather than Mate. *SOMETHING* was making the system dreadfully slow (and I don't have an underpowered system). Perhaps it was indexing the entire disk. Perhaps it was doing ?? virus-checking?? Whatever, it was nearly as bad as Nepomuk, but I can turn Nepomuk indexing off. Slocate is as good an index as I need. I don't mind running updatedb if I want to find something recently added.
Perhaps I'll check it again in a few months, if I don't adapt to KDE4...but that process seems to be going well. (Except for the icons at the bottom of the screen flashing to oversize if I get near them. There's *got* to be a way to turn that off. [And YES, it's an extra panel. But my workflow requires it.])
I think this is a reference to the more recent story (a couple of months ago) where he said he found the wobbly windows amusing. (I've never tried to find out what wobbly windows means.)
OTOH, Gnome went out of it's way to make the fallback mode too ugly to use. I've never actually tried Gnome3, as it won't run on my system. (The video board is too old.) But the fallback mode was lousy enough that I switched first to xfce and then to LXDE and finally to KDE4. None were as good as Gnome2, but all were better than Gnome3. The reason I finally selected KDE4 was that I could get electricsheep to run. Generally, though, I prefer xfce or LXDE. They're a bit too simple for my tastes, but KDE4 is a bit to complex. Switching to KDE4 seems to have broken gedit, but that's bearable. (The editor still works, but the terminal emulator shows up blank-black.) Still, that may have been a Gnome "upgrade", as I haven't tried going back to some other WM. Besides, both Kate and Geany still work fine. (So does medit, etc., though I rarely use it. So I suspect a Gnome "upgrade".)
Note, however, that Gnome removing the fallback mode removes even the *possibility* that I might decide to use the Gnome WM.
Yeah. Nate Silver made explicit predictions, and knew precisely what his variables are. The gp observed the populace and the news and made an estimate. Also Nate Silver had a lot more than just a lunch riding on it. And also Nate Silver made a lot more detailed prediction.
Both, however, predicted the same thing. Both were correct. Both were sufficiently accurate for their purposes.
So there are both similarities and differences. But, by investing enough time and effort Nate Silver has a better chance of repeating his success.
FWIW, I also predicted an easy Obama victory, based on news reports. And I was correct enough for my purposes.
The political attitudes of the third parties are not what guarantee them a permanent minority position, it's the plurality wins voting system. A majority wins voting system would not have this problem, and that's what Instand Runoff and Condorcet voting synthesize.
FWIW, it can be proven that there is no best voting system. All systems have flaws. But the plurality system is probably the worst multi-party voting system. It's provably the worst in current use, if the goal is that the majority of people not be displeased by the result. (If you change the goal, the proof fails, depending, of course, on what the replacement goal is. The quibble is because there could be lots of multi-party voting systems that weren't considered in the proof. E.g., "Pick one at random" was not analysed.)
P.S.: This is my summary of a old Scientific American article on voting systems. But read the entire article, not just the summary, or you'll get the wrong idea.
Sorry, but if you're being attacked, a design patent is very similar to a real patent. You're guilty if you infringe even if you didn't know about it, the limits of what is covered is vague and intentionally obscured, penalties can be huge, and defending yourself is rediculously expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
That sounds like a good reason to avoid Toshiba.
I know that what they are doing is legal. It is at least arguable that it is ethical. It is undoubtable, however, that it is hostile to a group of customers. Or, possibly now, ex-customers. Or at least ex-potential customers. (I don't suppose that would be sufficient grounds to go through the hassle of returning an already purchased machine. Merely grounds not to buy one.)
Many of the policies advocated for combatting global warming are "environment theater" combined with pork-barrel politics. That's hard to argue with. CO2 should be dealt with using a Carbon tax. Buying tickets to pollute is just begging for ineffective programs, corruption, and favortism.
Also, it's already too late to avoid major damage, so at least half the effort should go into ameliorating the effects that are already showing up, or will soon show up. Sea level rise is one that's going to require major funding to deal with, and just how it should be dealt with isn't clear. Restoring beaches is "environmental theater", however. It only works in the absence of sea level rise....and it's already risen.
N.B.: Global warming doesn't mean local warming. In one past episode of global warming Europe and the eastern US entered a mini-ice age. (That was apparently caused by a large fresh water lake created by melting glaciers spilling into the Atlantic, but Greenland melting might well do the same job. And it appears to be melting right now. OTOH, it seems to be a more gradual influx of fresh water, so maybe it won't do the same thing. I'm no climate modeler.)
P.S.: If you want to check out what I'm talking about, search for "The Younger Dryas" and for comparison "The Older Dryas".
You clearly haven't been following crop failures, though I'll admit that turning chicken corn into ethanol is one of the stupider ideas. It's not economic, and it shortens the supply of food. But it's the crop failures that are the real problem. You'll probably notice it later this year or early next year, when the stockpiles start to run low, so the price goes up. Some people have already noticed it. Suicide is rising among Indian farmers, e.g., because of crop failures. I don't know who is most affected by the failure of the Russian wheat harvest, and I don't know who is most affected by this years failure of the US wheat harvest.
Please note: Failure doesn't mean that no grain was harvested. It means that a LOT less than expected was harvested. And in the cases that I mentioned it can be clearly laid at the foot of unfavorable weather. (I'm not sure what the US corn harvest was like. If it hit the headlines, I missed it.) I seem to recall that Europe had some crop failures this year too, but I can't remember what they were, however Europe on the west side of the Caucasas isn't a big grain producer. I think I heard that Greece and Spain had some sort of crop failure.
And that's all in the last year. (Though possibly the suicides among Indian farmers date back before then, and I only saw the report this year.)
I don't think that the A-10 rocket was EVER approaching ready. The Saturn was a development of the V-2 (I forget what it's German designation was) but the A-10 was just abandoned. This was probably because it would have required transistors to work properly. Vacuum tubes are ok in a stable environment, but under heavy shocks they tend to lose their filaments. Some will continue to work, as proximity fuses proved, but I suspect that complex circuits were too unreliable to use.
FWIW, apparently the Germans had radar too. Neither side knew that the other had it (though the Allies found out first). Which is really strange, when the Germans were on the offensive first.
As the attack shifted, and the Allies began aerial attacks on Germany, they started using chaff to block the German radar.
You are ignoring the difference in size of production facilities.
That said, if Hitler had continued to get Chamerlain type responses from his opponents, his side would have won the war. But I'm not really sure he could even have won against Russia alone.
Or Enrico Fermi.
But Einstein was not ineffective as a scientist. It's true he was unable to accept quantum theory, but it was his attacks that turned it into a massively successful theory. (Admittedly, most of what I know about that was from after the war, but also note that he was a theoretician rather than an engineer, so to expect him to directly participate in building an atomic reactor is unreasonable.)
For that matter, it was some of Einstein's attacks on quantum theory that lead to the laser and to concentrations of atoms all in the same quantum state (sorry, can't remember the name at the moment...not even well enough to google it)
Obama has indeed not been a strong president. I credit this to his not wanting to push the proposals he want to be seen as favoring, but it's possible that he really just has not strong political feelings.
He still appears better than Romney. Mind you, that's not saying very much.
I'm considering the possibility that the Republicans are proposing candidates who are more and more impressively right-wing whackos as a "Tactics of Distraction" kind of thing, to manuver the Democrats more and more right, until the Republicans can propose a centrist candidate and sweep the election. Either that, or they're aiming for a dictatorship and don't care who the dictator is. (And it's quite plausible that their backers might not care who the dictator was, as long as he followed orders.)
I was, indeed, quite offended by many aspects of that story. But it's still a good story. Not, however, up the "Out of the Silent Planet", or "The Screwtape Letters"
What do you consider to be a viable alternative?
When answering, please consider the debt that a college loan entails, and the rapid ongoing automation of all feasible jobs...to the extend that workers in China are being replaced by robots.
Not that I disagree with your conclusions, but you mistate the problem.
The Republicans favor tax cuts FOR THE WEALTHY.
The Democrats favor spending more ON THE IMPOVERISHED.
Both sides want to spend more on the military, though the Republicans are slightly more eager.
Both sides want to claim to cut taxes, though the Republicans are much more eager.
Neither side wants to acknowledge a tax rise, though the Democrats are slightly more willing.
The last time the budget came close to being balanced was under a Democrat. I believe (though I'm not sure) that it was starting to pay off the national debt that caused the orchestrated attempt to get him impeached. (Yes, he was indeed corrupt. *IF* we've had a president in my lifetime who wasn't corrupt, it was Eisenhower, and I've my suspicions about him.)
That's not actually true. But the amount they give doesn't approach the amount that the churches save by not paying taxes.
That said, some of the churches DO serve useful purposes WRT charity. And some of them are acutally net positive contributions to society. Most of the others are not massive drags.
I haven't been able to measure in my mind whether (ignoring the fundies) the churches are a benefit to society or not. One of my neighbors was massively helped by the congregation of which she was a member, before I even knew she had a problem That said, there are lots of people within five blocks of here that depend utterly on government assist.. They couldn't pay their rent without it, much less buy food or medical care. And they aren't being helped by the churches. But many homeless in truely destitute condition are helped by missionary churches, self-serving as they are.
Sorry, it isn't (necessarily) really a collaborative effort. It's just that each side is so totally focused on the short term that when they get in their focus is on "extending our political power". So it's *as if* it were a collaborative effort.
See flocking behavior in artificial life simulations. (e.g., "boids" http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/ )
Sorry, but college degrees DEFINITELY correlate with educated. And the correlation is strongly positive.
I will agree that this doesn't imply that college degrees correlate with smart, particularly without a good working definition of smart. They are negatively correlated with creativity, e.g.
Please note that these two correlations have not significantly altered in the last few centuries, presuming that you are, in each case, comparing against an appropriate control group. This isn't to say that the percentage of the population being so educated has remained constant. It hasn't. But that is a totally separate argument.
Let me guess...you're in your twenties or early thirties.
libertarianism is unstable.(The lower case "l" is intentional, as I'm not talking about the party.) Well, more unstable, all governments are unstable. I'm in favor of liberalism, because given the current state of the government, that a place that's relatively easy to transition to. Many of the tennants of libertarianism are compatible with liberalism, so it possible to transition to a libertarianistic liberalism from a centrist liberalism.
(A long justification follows, with some digressions on stability of various governmental types)
In each case you've got to figure the plausible trasition states unless you are advocating violent revolution. That often makes drastic changes, but very rarely of a desireable nature.
So the real question is "What plausible transitions are there from a statist-authoritarian-rightist government. (And I consider Democrats to be a rightist party.)
Some of the constraints are that the population typically lives in large clusters with rapid transport and communication. This makes many possible transition states so unstable as to collapse nearly immediately into some other near-by state. Anarchy, e.g., would immediately collapse into warlordism. If the warlordism was stable enough, it would evolve into feudalism, but given rapid transport and communication, it's not stable enough. Unless and exterior authority intervened it would probably oscillate back and forth between warlordism and short episodes of anarchy until the rapid transportation and communication broke down. Then the warlordism might evolve into feudalism, or possibly directly into monarchy (if the warlords had rapid transportation). Etc.
In our current society there are other stable states...but anarchy isn't one of them. Dictatorship is stable, and it can evolve into monarchy which can evolve into limited monarchy, which can probably evolve into some flavor of democracy. But I really doubt that society would be stable for long enough for that to happen.
Another transition is from autocratic-authoritarian to liberal-authoritarian to liberal-libertarian...with the libertarianism being very constrained. E.g., I can see unregulated access to drugs as being stable, but I have a hard time seeing unregulated access to weapons as being stable. The factor enabling unregulated access to drugs to be stable is that it would allow the populace to sedate themselves. (N.B.: Alcohol is a very poor choice for a drug to allow to be unregulated. It MUST be largely unregulated, however, because it is popular with a very influential segment of society, and forbidding it cause massive social upheaval. Marijuana is much better, as it sedates. Opiates, again, should probably not be regulated...but allowing it to be unregulated requires acceptance of a large number of suicides via overdose...often unintentional. LSD is relatively harmless, but tends to loosen social conditioning. In a libertarian setting this is basically harmless, unless you count people choosing to harm themselves.) Authoritarian regeimes often feel the need for sumptary laws...but note that other authoritarian regeimes coesist happily with many drugs that act to sedate to populace. Cocoa (unprocessed, and containing cocaine) was used by Aztec slaves, as opium was used by Greek and Roman slaves, to make their lot endurable. However such regeimes cannot abide "psychedelics", at least if not administered in a controlled religious setting. (I'm being a bit general here. Historical background doesn't really justify all this.) In this case by religious I essential mean a setting that is used to justify the current government. Explicit spiritual meaning is not a requirement, but it exists in all historical settings with which I am familiar.
OTOH: Rapid changes of state between approximately equally stable states (of government) can happen very rapidly, and without much drama. (Here I'm not counting the collapse of the Soviet Union as being "without much dra
Calling the Democrats the party of "Hate" and "racism" is weird. They ARE one of the two main parties favoring centralized authoritarian government, but they aren't the ones pushing hate and racism.
FWIW, I didn't vote Democratic, because I couldn't force myself to vote for a president that signed a bill giving himself the right to order any citizen killed without trial. He's got many other major flaws, starting with the way he voted for secret courts back while he was a Senator, but I might have overlooked those to oppose Romney (who is even worse, and is supported by followers who are worse than he is...well, that can be said of everyone, but still...).
As to the integrity of the election...I truely doubt it, but when the exit polls agree with the tallied vote, there isn't that much basis for the doubt, if, that is, all qualified voters who desired to vote were allowed to vote (and not duped out of their right). FWIW, I heard many stories of Republicans suborning the vote by convincing qualified voters to not vote. I didn't hear any such stories about the Democrats. Well, stories aren't proof, and anyone can make claims. But it raises a lot of suspicion in my mind as to just *who* tampered with the vote, and just *how* it was done. That said, in the prior election BOTH sides were shown to have tampered with the vote. I don't recall that it was ever have shown that it changed a result, however (even though there were various suspicions raised).
Yet again, a supreme court decision sealing a vote so that it couldn't be examined sticks in my mind, and I *DEFINITELY* count that as Republican vote tampering. There's no way of knowing whether it would have changed the result. But it seems that the government's desife is to not consider the problem. To make a decision, and then PRETEND that it was the decision of the voters, whether that was the actual vote or not. IIRC the supreme court explicitly said that the reason for it's decision was so that a decison could be reached NOW without regard to whether or not it was correct. And to prevent it from being challenged by sealing the evidence.
So I consider BOTH parties to be complicit in voter fraud, on the basis of past elections.
Define adequate. If the Window Manager is using a resource, then my programs can't. I basically turn off all special effects, because they're ususally hidden, and when they show up, they're either distracting or they actively get in the way. Static images are fine, and I prefer that a button signal that it's changed state while it's being pressed. And I want a visible cursor. Outside of that...
That said, I do like having different types of files have different icons, and it's useful if graphics files present a small thumbnail. But note that these are STATIC. (Well, counting the button press, minimal.) They bloody well DON'T require a GPU.
I'll agree that the Gnome devs went out of their way to make it ugly and hard to stand using, but at least it would run on my system, which is more than I can say for the non-fallback mode.
I used to occasionally log into it to accomplish something that was easier to do in Gnome-fallback than in xfce or LXDE. Looks like this won't be happening any more, and I will no longer be able to tell people that an application will work with Gnome.
I'd been running Gnome2 ever since KDE3 was pulled from the repository. I can't run Gnome3...but I can run KDE4. Guess which I'll choose? (Yeah, I also like xfce and LXDE, but my wife wouldn't.)
I preferred Gnome2 to either KDE4 or xfce or LXDE. I still do, but it isn't in the repository. That I've currently moved to KDE4 is not a statement of preference.
OTOH, I will admit that I preferred KDE3 to Gnome2. KDE3 was possibly the best WM I've ever used. I was (and am) disgusted with the change to KDE4. (I understand that the libraries are better. This may be so. The interface is lots worse. Enough worse that Gnome2 was better.)
Gnome3 stands out as a LOUSY desktop. It's up there with Microsoft Bob.
I tried Mint Mate a few months ago, and while I found it better than Gnome3 (fallback), I didn't find it as good as either xfce or LXDE. This, however, may have been Mint rather than Mate. *SOMETHING* was making the system dreadfully slow (and I don't have an underpowered system). Perhaps it was indexing the entire disk. Perhaps it was doing ?? virus-checking?? Whatever, it was nearly as bad as Nepomuk, but I can turn Nepomuk indexing off. Slocate is as good an index as I need. I don't mind running updatedb if I want to find something recently added.
Perhaps I'll check it again in a few months, if I don't adapt to KDE4...but that process seems to be going well. (Except for the icons at the bottom of the screen flashing to oversize if I get near them. There's *got* to be a way to turn that off. [And YES, it's an extra panel. But my workflow requires it.])
I think this is a reference to the more recent story (a couple of months ago) where he said he found the wobbly windows amusing. (I've never tried to find out what wobbly windows means.)
OTOH, Gnome went out of it's way to make the fallback mode too ugly to use. I've never actually tried Gnome3, as it won't run on my system. (The video board is too old.) But the fallback mode was lousy enough that I switched first to xfce and then to LXDE and finally to KDE4. None were as good as Gnome2, but all were better than Gnome3. The reason I finally selected KDE4 was that I could get electricsheep to run. Generally, though, I prefer xfce or LXDE. They're a bit too simple for my tastes, but KDE4 is a bit to complex. Switching to KDE4 seems to have broken gedit, but that's bearable. (The editor still works, but the terminal emulator shows up blank-black.) Still, that may have been a Gnome "upgrade", as I haven't tried going back to some other WM. Besides, both Kate and Geany still work fine. (So does medit, etc., though I rarely use it. So I suspect a Gnome "upgrade".)
Note, however, that Gnome removing the fallback mode removes even the *possibility* that I might decide to use the Gnome WM.
Yeah. Nate Silver made explicit predictions, and knew precisely what his variables are. The gp observed the populace and the news and made an estimate. Also Nate Silver had a lot more than just a lunch riding on it. And also Nate Silver made a lot more detailed prediction.
Both, however, predicted the same thing. Both were correct. Both were sufficiently accurate for their purposes.
So there are both similarities and differences. But, by investing enough time and effort Nate Silver has a better chance of repeating his success.
FWIW, I also predicted an easy Obama victory, based on news reports. And I was correct enough for my purposes.
The political attitudes of the third parties are not what guarantee them a permanent minority position, it's the plurality wins voting system. A majority wins voting system would not have this problem, and that's what Instand Runoff and Condorcet voting synthesize.
FWIW, it can be proven that there is no best voting system. All systems have flaws. But the plurality system is probably the worst multi-party voting system. It's provably the worst in current use, if the goal is that the majority of people not be displeased by the result. (If you change the goal, the proof fails, depending, of course, on what the replacement goal is. The quibble is because there could be lots of multi-party voting systems that weren't considered in the proof. E.g., "Pick one at random" was not analysed.)
P.S.: This is my summary of a old Scientific American article on voting systems. But read the entire article, not just the summary, or you'll get the wrong idea.
Sorry, but if you're being attacked, a design patent is very similar to a real patent. You're guilty if you infringe even if you didn't know about it, the limits of what is covered is vague and intentionally obscured, penalties can be huge, and defending yourself is rediculously expensive.