Re:"Insightful"? not "funny"?
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 1
How so? Electoral college votes are still directly proportional to population, they just lump the whole state together when one candidate gets ahead of the others.
Actually, you are wrong. The number of electoral votes a given state has is the number of representatives they have (which is proportional to their population), plus 2 for the 2 senators they have. Since all states have the same number of senators, this skews the distribution to allow for greater representation of the sparsely populated states.
Under this system, Wyoming gets 3 votes, which is much greater in proportion to California's 54 considering that Wyoming's population is ~500k, while California's is about 33 million people.
The total power of all votes is constant: they select a President.
Wrong again. The power of a vote can be seen as the probability that it will be the tiebreaking vote, ie that everyone else deadlocks. An individual voter has a higher chance of being the tiebreaker in a state versus the whole nation.
What on Earth makes an electoral college system less about popularity?
The concept of winning states means that candidates cannot just pander to the large blocs of people with similar views that would get him a 51% nationwide majority. Instead candidates must be more moderate (read Federalist #10) to appeal to voters in many disparate states.
This was a freak election, for both the popular and electoral votes to be so close. With so many states at 48%-52%, it could easily have turned out that one side had a strong majority (over 60% or even 70%) of electoral college votes, though the other had a slight majority in the popular vote.
And this is the point exactly. With the electoral college system, barring freak occurances (such as Florida), there will almost always be a candidate who wins a majority of electoral votes, even if they only win a plurality of the popular vote (if that).
How many other lego scuplters would our nation produce if we were more liberal with funding for the arts? How many nascent artists, how many little Erics, are picking through their lego tubs, searching for that flat 3x1 piece, but more importantly, searching for a nation who would see their promise and help them deliver?
Why should I care how many more lego artists could thrive if our nation decided it knew better than I do what my money (and yes, my tax dollars fund the NEA)? I think the Lego Desk (and Mona Lisa, etc.) are wonderful, but that's where my appreciation stops. The current situation, where an e-commerce company (or a programmer, in the Mona Lisa's case) funds these frivolous projects, seems fine to me.
And as for your final line (partially quoted):
It's imperative that the promise of tomorrow doesn't get squashed [...]
I sincerely hope you were being facetious when you wrote the above line. Even if all people did was worthwhile (which is a stretch in itself), nearly none of it deserves to be funded by the public. Redistribution of wealth by the government for social purposes (whether to cure social "ills" or to fund Lego artists) is unjust.
Freedom is better than pseudo-socialism. Vote Republican.
Isn't that a reason to vote Libertarian, not Republican? In my opinion, that three Republicans sponsored this bill (along with the Democrat) might as well be coincidence, as it seems like both major parties are singing the same tune. If you really care strongly about Freedom vs. Socialism, either vote Libertarian or vote Socialist -- don't fool yourself into thinking that the Republicans are the protectors of our liberties any more than the Democrats are.
Think how much faster and more efficient the Internet could be if instead of always connecting you to a central server every time you click on to a website, your computer would find the source that housed that information nearest to you [...]
Sounds like SF's next project will be to travel back in time a few years, say to 1995, and then start up Akamai.
their choice of location for the "PC Card Slot" is rather amusing.
If the choice was between putting the Memory Stick receptacle/hole/slot/call-it-what-you-will there, or the PC Card Slot, I think they made the right choice.
We all came from Adam and Eve, and despite all the inbreeding, look how good we turned out!
First of all, I hope the above quote was written tongue-in-cheek. Just in case it is not, though, I have to object to it, as even among the otherwise devout, Creationism is not widely accepted. If pseudo-science appeals to you, you might want to check out Breatharianism; that way, you'll either have your blind faith validated, or you will be dead and we will hear no more from you.
Wow, if titanium becomes as common and "household" as aluminum, glasses/snow-board/bicycle manufacturers won't be able to charge a premium for the space-age futuristic-sounding titanium!
At least for bike frames, I was under the impression that most of the premium was because titanium is so difficult to work with. This suggests that costs may not fall too much for frames, even if the material becomes suddenly cheap.
Merlin Metalworks, who make some of the nicest, imo (I ride a Kona myself as I don't have unlimited funds), frames on the market, has a titanium primer up that has some relevant info on how weld quality is very important when working with titanium, among other tidbits.
.imagin going areound bling blingin' with a chrome can of 7up in your hand...what would the ladies think...
Actually, they probably wouldn't think much at all of it, if whatever material in question was a commodity. It's things that are rare/or have their supply constrained (as in the case of diamonds) that are sought after. Make something ubiquitous, and it loses its value and appeal to most.
I love my Handspring Visor. Everyone college student should have one, or at least sort of PDA for keeping track of your schedule and assignments.
I beg to differ. Although I seriously contemplated getting a Visor/Palm just because they are cool (at least in the CS crowd, no snickers please), I ended up not spending a dime. Why? Well, combine your own (built in to your head) memory with Yahoo Calendar, and perhaps a few iMac kiosks with web browsers scattered around campus as we have, and you suddenly have little need for a Palm.
I think most well-educated people these days lean to the left politically. After all, it's obvious that society needs to care for all its members, not just those with the skills and poor ethical temperament necessary to succeed in a war of all against all, as in traditional capitalism.
Perhaps your friends would like to see our successful (as you admitted yourself) capitalist nation turned into yet another socialist failure-experiment, but I for one wouldn't. If you have any illusions about the grandeur, oops, I meant the squalor that most Russians enjoyed under their "enlightened" socialist regime, read We The Living by Ayn Rand. And, by the way, ad hominem criticism, as you implied in your statement (i.e., people who aren't left-leaning politically are stupid/uneducated), is not a valid form of arguing. Try again. -t
And unless your newsreader supports this new x-header they're in the process of creating (I get the impression it's not done), there's nothing you can do about it.
Actually, this header (X-no-archive) has been around as long as Dejanews has, and has been used by individuals like myself for just as long. I, for one, don't want to look back at what I thought 4 years ago -- that would should down my impression of infallibility...
As for whether Deja has the right to alter posts, I think that they are out of bounds on this one; however, now that I think of it, then Google (with their highlight search terms feature) is just as guilty as well.
Likewise, to argue that humanity's extinction would be bad is equally silly. Just because we're sentient doesn't make us any more or less important than the hypothetical microbes on Mars.
I think it's time for you to read some Ayn Rand and get some self-esteem. You really think you are no greater than bacteria, or your individual cells? I really hope you don't believe that, as if you do, your whole life must be one great apology for having been born as a human.
The suit named a number of major colleges -- the University of Southern California, Harvard, Yale University (which immediately denied access to Napster through its network connections)
The above is unclear, for it makes it seem as if USC, Harvard, and Yale all banned Napster use. While I can't speak for USC or Yale, Harvard certainly hasn't banned/blocked Napster, and doesn't plan to do so, either.
This comparison is entirely unfair, because the deed that redeemed Vader wasn't just saving his son, but was also rebelling against his master, even though he knew that doing so would bring about his own death. As Brin points out, saving one's own son is hardly remarkable, and would not be particularly swaying in a court of law, but self-sacrifice is entirely different. -ajna
> Brin makes one particularly interesting point about Darth Vader's redemption > in Return of the Jedi. He writes: > > To put it in perspective, let's imagine that the United States and its allies > managed to capture Adolf Hitler [...]
> [Firebird] has a fiery intense section in the > middle and ends on a calming peaceful note.
I don't recall the Firebird having an ending either "calming" or "peaceful." Calming and peaceful are better adjectives for the second-to-last part (not the true ending), the Berceuse, than for the true ending ("Finale" in the score). The Finale is rather brass-heavy and loud, and is in 7/4 for much of the time, to boot - I doubt any of these characteristics would make for a calm audience (considering that most pop-trash is in 4/4).
Did any of you F2k viewers who are also familiar with the Firebird notice if the piece was cut (perhaps at the Berceuse)?
> Of course you could add an Airport compatible card to the PCMCIA slot of the > old Powerbook...but it was $299 where the Airport card is $99 [...]
Not quite true - as long as you don't get suckered by Farallon's inferior (2 mbps vs. 11 mbps) SkyLINE card, you won't pay $299 for a pcmcia wireless card. I paid $170 for my Cabletron RoamAbout, which works flawlessly with AirPort Base Stations. -Toshi
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Under this system, Wyoming gets 3 votes, which is much greater in proportion to California's 54 considering that Wyoming's population is ~500k, while California's is about 33 million people.
Wrong again. The power of a vote can be seen as the probability that it will be the tiebreaking vote, ie that everyone else deadlocks. An individual voter has a higher chance of being the tiebreaker in a state versus the whole nation. The concept of winning states means that candidates cannot just pander to the large blocs of people with similar views that would get him a 51% nationwide majority. Instead candidates must be more moderate (read Federalist #10) to appeal to voters in many disparate states. And this is the point exactly. With the electoral college system, barring freak occurances (such as Florida), there will almost always be a candidate who wins a majority of electoral votes, even if they only win a plurality of the popular vote (if that).Isn't that a reason to vote Libertarian, not Republican? In my opinion, that three Republicans sponsored this bill (along with the Democrat) might as well be coincidence, as it seems like both major parties are singing the same tune. If you really care strongly about Freedom vs. Socialism, either vote Libertarian or vote Socialist -- don't fool yourself into thinking that the Republicans are the protectors of our liberties any more than the Democrats are.
Sounds like SF's next project will be to travel back in time a few years, say to 1995, and then start up Akamai.
If the choice was between putting the Memory Stick receptacle/hole/slot/call-it-what-you-will there, or the PC Card Slot, I think they made the right choice.
First of all, I hope the above quote was written tongue-in-cheek. Just in case it is not, though, I have to object to it, as even among the otherwise devout, Creationism is not widely accepted. If pseudo-science appeals to you, you might want to check out Breatharianism; that way, you'll either have your blind faith validated, or you will be dead and we will hear no more from you.
At least for bike frames, I was under the impression that most of the premium was because titanium is so difficult to work with. This suggests that costs may not fall too much for frames, even if the material becomes suddenly cheap.
Merlin Metalworks, who make some of the nicest, imo (I ride a Kona myself as I don't have unlimited funds), frames on the market, has a titanium primer up that has some relevant info on how weld quality is very important when working with titanium, among other tidbits.
Actually, they probably wouldn't think much at all of it, if whatever material in question was a commodity. It's things that are rare/or have their supply constrained (as in the case of diamonds) that are sought after. Make something ubiquitous, and it loses its value and appeal to most.
I beg to differ. Although I seriously contemplated getting a Visor/Palm just because they are cool (at least in the CS crowd, no snickers please), I ended up not spending a dime. Why? Well, combine your own (built in to your head) memory with Yahoo Calendar, and perhaps a few iMac kiosks with web browsers scattered around campus as we have, and you suddenly have little need for a Palm.
Here is the info on the patent in question, served up by IBM's patent server: US 06108703
Perhaps your friends would like to see our successful (as you admitted yourself) capitalist nation turned into yet another socialist failure-experiment, but I for one wouldn't. If you have any illusions about the grandeur, oops, I meant the squalor that most Russians enjoyed under their "enlightened" socialist regime, read We The Living by Ayn Rand. And, by the way, ad hominem criticism, as you implied in your statement (i.e., people who aren't left-leaning politically are stupid/uneducated), is not a valid form of arguing. Try again. -t
http://www.failuremag.com/failure_interview.html
barzok wrote:
Actually, this header (X-no-archive) has been around as long as Dejanews has, and has been used by individuals like myself for just as long. I, for one, don't want to look back at what I thought 4 years ago -- that would should down my impression of infallibility...
As for whether Deja has the right to alter posts, I think that they are out of bounds on this one; however, now that I think of it, then Google (with their highlight search terms feature) is just as guilty as well.
Toshi
HalloFlippy wrote:
I think it's time for you to read some Ayn Rand and get some self-esteem. You really think you are no greater than bacteria, or your individual cells? I really hope you don't believe that, as if you do, your whole life must be one great apology for having been born as a human.
-- no sig for you.
The relevant link: Harvard will not restrict Napster use.
-- no sig for you
This comparison is entirely unfair, because the deed that redeemed Vader wasn't just saving his son, but was also rebelling against his master, even though he knew that doing so would bring about his own death. As Brin points out, saving one's own son is hardly remarkable, and would not be particularly swaying in a court of law, but self-sacrifice is entirely different. -ajna
> Brin makes one particularly interesting point about Darth Vader's redemption
> in Return of the Jedi. He writes:
>
> To put it in perspective, let's imagine that the United States and its allies
> managed to capture Adolf Hitler [...]
In the article:
> [Firebird] has a fiery intense section in the
> middle and ends on a calming peaceful note.
I don't recall the Firebird having an ending either "calming" or "peaceful." Calming and peaceful are better adjectives for the second-to-last part (not the true ending), the Berceuse, than for the true ending ("Finale" in the score). The Finale is rather brass-heavy and loud, and is in 7/4 for much of the time, to boot - I doubt any of these characteristics would make for a calm audience (considering that most pop-trash is in 4/4).
Did any of you F2k viewers who are also familiar with the Firebird notice if the piece was cut (perhaps at the Berceuse)?
Wyatt wrote:
> Of course you could add an Airport compatible card to the PCMCIA slot of the
> old Powerbook...but it was $299 where the Airport card is $99 [...]
Not quite true - as long as you don't get suckered by Farallon's inferior (2 mbps vs. 11 mbps) SkyLINE card, you won't pay $299 for a pcmcia wireless card. I paid $170 for my Cabletron RoamAbout, which works flawlessly with AirPort Base Stations. -Toshi