Please note that one of today's two most corrupt American political machines, the Republican Party, loves the electoral college due to the disproportionate amount of voting power it delivers them.
Those Founding Fathers who favored the Electoral College had reasons for doing so. They were mistaken.
Absolutely wrong, I'm afraid. The only reason the scenario came out that way was because both "major" factions rigged the system. If only one had done so and the other had played fair, the side playing dirty would have won outright. Under this system, the strongest factions have to cheat the system just to stay competitive.
Myself, I'm having trouble understanding who would moderated up this self-confessed idiocy. The money you "give" "Poor Boy" has to come from somewhere, which means, in this example, it must come from "Rich Boy". If you're going to do that, you might as well just adjust the tax rates to start with and avoid the inefficiency of a separate program.
Incidentally, the fact that one Boy is Poor and the other Rich implies that they aren't playing the same game, so the parent post's definition of "fair" doesn't apply.
If a scientific theory of creationism can be presented, then perhaps it should be included in science classes. Of course, for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable. I suspect that few advocates of creationism are willing to submit to this.
Non-scientific theories of creationism may be suitable for study due to their popularity, but this does not justify their inclusion in science classes.
Another take on this is that FF game plots have always been weak, but the interactivity distracts players from that. They've been considered "good" relative to other games, but the average quality of game plots in general is pretty poor.
You're using a strange definition of "trivial", one which omits the significant details of how to get truck-sized quantities of explosives into such a small plane, how to rig them for effective detonation, how to get nerve agent and fly it into restricted airspace, and how to hit anything other than the ground with coins from "a few thousand feet up", much less kill people. I'd be more cautious about accusing others of "poor logic".
Alan's point is that the truly mathematical aspects of computing have become second-place to the eye-candy aspects.
No.
"[H]e says, today's PC is too dedicated to replicating earlier tools, like ink and paper."
[. ..]
"Kay's ultimate dream is to completely remake the way we communicate with each other. At the least, he wants to enable people to collaborate and work together simply and elegantly. For him, 'the primary task of the Internet is to connect every person to every other person.'"
A car can be free (as in beer). It cannot be free (as in speech).
A bad choice of example; complex hardware can also be free-speech or not according to whether full schematics and technical specifications are available for it. With respect to cars specifically, note also the continued trend toward black-box computers and diagnostic systems.
Re:Macintosh needs to go back to the future.
on
Apple Delays New iMac
·
· Score: 2, Funny
[T]here's no excuse for a premium priced computer to come with anything but a Trinitron-style arpeture-grill display.
Um, if the lower courts were signed out of existence, and the Supreme Court were forbidden to hear cases involving copyright, then that would leave no one to hear those cases. Then no copyright cases could be brought, and no one could be punished for infringement.
Furthermore, any judiciary must, by its nature, interpret the law, and the Constitution is no more or less than the highest law of the land. If ordinary laws conflict with it, they are overridden by it.
Citations of think tanks as a metric for determining liberalism or conservatism? Comparing these values against members of Congress instead of the general public? How... senseless. I suppose the second was necessary, given the first, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a totally artificial method.
Now, if you want to know where journalists and the public stand relative to one another on policy questions, why not ask them? The results are surprising, though admittedly, these biases may not carry over into their reporting. I do have to commend the Groseclose & Milyo study for focusing on that rather than yet again analyzing the journalists themselves. (You do realize that this is the work of two individual professors, not of their institutions, right? Bringing up the politics of UCLA is a red herring. Find out what sort of politics Groseclose & Milyo have and we can talk.)
Re:American opinion is no measure of truth
on
Evoting in the News
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, if that document is real, it just proves that up until at least March of 1998 there was no relationship, and at that time someone wanted to establish one. An interesting lead that could point the way to something more substantial, but pretty tenuous by itself.
"Pity" and "scolding" don't enter into it. The articles you linked refer to effects on customers, whereas the main point of the article you're responding to was that dealing with Wal-Mart is dangerous for suppliers. Vlasic was in a position where 30% of their business came from Wal-Mart, and they couldn't afford to abandon that -- so Wal-Mart played hardball and essentially forced Vlasic to provide Wal-Mart with a free advertising campaign that killed Vlasic's profitability.
Since Wal-Mart has a superior bargaining position with respect to its suppliers, it's natural for the deals it makes to be better for it than for them. The consumer might not care, but the supplier should move with caution.
Re:Be entertained you whiney twits
on
Message in a Battle
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
How about anybody who can't enjoy a LOTR movie is a stuck up snot.
Nah... that would be anybody who can't handle the fact that different people have differing opinions.
That excuse applies to some changes, but not all, and not what I myself consider the worst.
Should you be called a "closed-minded apologist"? I'm not the poster you're responding to, but please acknowledge that those who dislike some of the changes may possess considered reasons for their dislike.
A simple way to help deal with this is to restrict the loser's payment to no more than the loser himself spent in legal fees.
Example: The RIAA sues Joe. RIAA spends $10,000 in legal fees; Joe spends $500. The loser, whoever it is, pays the winner $500 for legal fees.
An even more radical alternative would be to make it so that the loser pays an amount equal to his own expenditure; in that case, Joe would owe an extra $500 if he lost, but the RIAA would owe him $10,000 if they lost.
Either way, both parties would have a powerful incentive to keep their legal spending within reasonable limits. This is good for everyone except the lawyers.
Open source, closed source -- it does matter. The same "strong leadership" and ongoing testing you call for can be performed on either; the "many eyes" argument is a supplement, not a replacement. It is neither necessary nor sufficient for making a system secure, but it is beneficial, and that's enough.
All of these arguments against open source are spurious because they're actually aimed at "free software", which is not the same thing. The main problem with open source software from a business standpoint is that anyone can copy it and conceal the fact afterwards; however, if all election software were required to be open source, this problem would be much reduced. Intellectual property law would still apply, and violations would be readily apparent.
Slashdot Mirror
Please note that one of today's two most corrupt American political machines, the Republican Party, loves the electoral college due to the disproportionate amount of voting power it delivers them.
Those Founding Fathers who favored the Electoral College had reasons for doing so. They were mistaken.
Absolutely wrong, I'm afraid. The only reason the scenario came out that way was because both "major" factions rigged the system. If only one had done so and the other had played fair, the side playing dirty would have won outright. Under this system, the strongest factions have to cheat the system just to stay competitive.
Myself, I'm having trouble understanding who would moderated up this self-confessed idiocy. The money you "give" "Poor Boy" has to come from somewhere, which means, in this example, it must come from "Rich Boy". If you're going to do that, you might as well just adjust the tax rates to start with and avoid the inefficiency of a separate program.
Incidentally, the fact that one Boy is Poor and the other Rich implies that they aren't playing the same game, so the parent post's definition of "fair" doesn't apply.
People who breed cats for profit are looked down upon as the scum of the universe by any real cat breeder.
Sounds like the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. These people are "real cat breeders" irrespective of their motivations.
can existing cameras be updated to the new format
Magic 8-ball says: I wouldn't count on it. Too much trouble to pull off in firmware updates for so little return.
If a scientific theory of creationism can be presented, then perhaps it should be included in science classes. Of course, for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable. I suspect that few advocates of creationism are willing to submit to this.
Non-scientific theories of creationism may be suitable for study due to their popularity, but this does not justify their inclusion in science classes.
Another take on this is that FF game plots have always been weak, but the interactivity distracts players from that. They've been considered "good" relative to other games, but the average quality of game plots in general is pretty poor.
They're not patenting what they did with the NES, so what they did with the NES has no bearing on their patent's legitimacy.
You're using a strange definition of "trivial", one which omits the significant details of how to get truck-sized quantities of explosives into such a small plane, how to rig them for effective detonation, how to get nerve agent and fly it into restricted airspace, and how to hit anything other than the ground with coins from "a few thousand feet up", much less kill people. I'd be more cautious about accusing others of "poor logic".
Who needs a real keyboard when you can tap out letters on the screen with a stylus?
A span of 2000 years includes plenty of room for coincidental fulfillment of prophecy.
Alan's point is that the truly mathematical aspects of computing have become second-place to the eye-candy aspects.
.]
No.
"[H]e says, today's PC is too dedicated to replicating earlier tools, like ink and paper."
[. .
"Kay's ultimate dream is to completely remake the way we communicate with each other. At the least, he wants to enable people to collaborate and work together simply and elegantly. For him, 'the primary task of the Internet is to connect every person to every other person.'"
A car can be free (as in beer). It cannot be free (as in speech).
A bad choice of example; complex hardware can also be free-speech or not according to whether full schematics and technical specifications are available for it. With respect to cars specifically, note also the continued trend toward black-box computers and diagnostic systems.
[T]here's no excuse for a premium priced computer to come with anything but a Trinitron-style arpeture-grill display.
I can think of two excuses:
1) ----------------
2) ----------------
Um, if the lower courts were signed out of existence, and the Supreme Court were forbidden to hear cases involving copyright, then that would leave no one to hear those cases. Then no copyright cases could be brought, and no one could be punished for infringement.
Furthermore, any judiciary must, by its nature, interpret the law, and the Constitution is no more or less than the highest law of the land. If ordinary laws conflict with it, they are overridden by it.
Who said anything about altruism? He identified a market segment.
Citations of think tanks as a metric for determining liberalism or conservatism? Comparing these values against members of Congress instead of the general public? How... senseless. I suppose the second was necessary, given the first, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a totally artificial method.
Now, if you want to know where journalists and the public stand relative to one another on policy questions, why not ask them? The results are surprising, though admittedly, these biases may not carry over into their reporting. I do have to commend the Groseclose & Milyo study for focusing on that rather than yet again analyzing the journalists themselves. (You do realize that this is the work of two individual professors, not of their institutions, right? Bringing up the politics of UCLA is a red herring. Find out what sort of politics Groseclose & Milyo have and we can talk.)
Actually, if that document is real, it just proves that up until at least March of 1998 there was no relationship, and at that time someone wanted to establish one. An interesting lead that could point the way to something more substantial, but pretty tenuous by itself.
Out of date.
"Pity" and "scolding" don't enter into it. The articles you linked refer to effects on customers, whereas the main point of the article you're responding to was that dealing with Wal-Mart is dangerous for suppliers. Vlasic was in a position where 30% of their business came from Wal-Mart, and they couldn't afford to abandon that -- so Wal-Mart played hardball and essentially forced Vlasic to provide Wal-Mart with a free advertising campaign that killed Vlasic's profitability.
Since Wal-Mart has a superior bargaining position with respect to its suppliers, it's natural for the deals it makes to be better for it than for them. The consumer might not care, but the supplier should move with caution.
How about anybody who can't enjoy a LOTR movie is a stuck up snot.
Nah... that would be anybody who can't handle the fact that different people have differing opinions.
That excuse applies to some changes, but not all, and not what I myself consider the worst.
Should you be called a "closed-minded apologist"? I'm not the poster you're responding to, but please acknowledge that those who dislike some of the changes may possess considered reasons for their dislike.
A simple way to help deal with this is to restrict the loser's payment to no more than the loser himself spent in legal fees.
Example: The RIAA sues Joe. RIAA spends $10,000 in legal fees; Joe spends $500. The loser, whoever it is, pays the winner $500 for legal fees.
An even more radical alternative would be to make it so that the loser pays an amount equal to his own expenditure; in that case, Joe would owe an extra $500 if he lost, but the RIAA would owe him $10,000 if they lost.
Either way, both parties would have a powerful incentive to keep their legal spending within reasonable limits. This is good for everyone except the lawyers.
Do you not realize that in order to "eliminate" private property, you must do so by force?
So must the one who tries to keep and defend it.
Open source, closed source -- it does matter. The same "strong leadership" and ongoing testing you call for can be performed on either; the "many eyes" argument is a supplement, not a replacement. It is neither necessary nor sufficient for making a system secure, but it is beneficial, and that's enough.
All of these arguments against open source are spurious because they're actually aimed at "free software", which is not the same thing. The main problem with open source software from a business standpoint is that anyone can copy it and conceal the fact afterwards; however, if all election software were required to be open source, this problem would be much reduced. Intellectual property law would still apply, and violations would be readily apparent.