The electoral college is merely a method of having the people who voted for the president vote via proxy. There has only been one faithless elector in the past 200+ years of history.
But the problem is, the electors don't vote in proportion to the popular vote. In many/most states, ALL the electors from that state are required to vote one particular way or the other according to what the voters of that state decide. This may look feasible upon first glance, but here's an example that brings it down very quickly:
Candidate A wins 60% of the state's popular vote, Candidate B wins 40%
Candidate A therefore wins the state's electoral votes (all of them, mind you)
The state has, say, 50 electoral votes
Candidate A therefore wins 50 electoral votes (100% of the state's influence), whereas if done proportionally by the popular vote, they would have only won 30 electoral votes (60% of the state's influence). Since only 270 electoral votes are required to win the election, this can make quite a difference.
The American electoral college system was established because of the unique balance of power created between state and individual representation. If people want to change it, they should attack it within its rightful context, rather than playing numbers games with possible outcomes.
The main reason why the EC was created was that at the time, there was no way of knowing that people in X part of the country would know anything about (and thus be able to render an educated decision about) a candidate from Y part. But now, being the Information Age that this is, this argument falls flat on its face. This is one of the big arguments people use against the EC system -- it is waaaaaaay outdated.
Surely there's someone here who can give us an estimate of how long it would take?
The previous world record was 102800 feet, set by Captain Joseph Kittinger in 1960. IIRC, he freefell for between four and four-and-a-half minutes, and pulled at an unusually high altitude (20000' or thereabouts). So it follows that a freefall from 160000' would probably take in the neighborhood of 7-8 minutes.
My favorite patent of all time is for a cat "laser excercise" device... basically you shine a lazer at the floor and the cat chases it.. but lord its patented. the patent holder obviously has a sense of humour. its as good an idea as anything I've seen patented recently... anyone have a link to this?
Am I being paranoid^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconcerned that MSs "theft" could be their carefully orchestrated, poorly disguised effort to discredit/destroy Open Source through oppresive application of litigation?
Not at all. Just take a look at what the MPAA and RIAA are doing...
another huge corporate monopoly. That seems to be the trend these days. Large Company A merging with Large Company B, creating a massive corporate organization and its inevitable result on end users and government. It's all about the bottom line nowadays.
Sure it would. A "traffic pattern" system could be used, similar to what is used at most airports. IOW, head north at this altitude, then turn west and descend to ###, then turn south... Not that enforcement would be that easy though. Would we have "air police" who would have radar guns and hover around watching for speeders? If so, how would they "pull over" someone?
Minors CAN SO own property. I had a bank account in my name when I was a minor.
And was the name of at least one of your parents on it? I bet it was. BTW, bank accounts opened in this way are partially the parent's property, because even though it is "your" account, the bank will give you a hard time about getting your parent's name off the account once you turn 18.
And indeed, the very protocol itself is designed to make the service easy to shut down in the event that Napster "loses" in court.
The "centralized server" model is what allows this quick-and-easy shutdown. As for the protocol itself, it's basically just a tweaked IRC protocol (RFC 1459).
The US is a free enough country that anyone can start their own AOL, Microsoft, Time/Warner or whatever.
True, but there's the (significant) chance that you either won't have enough of a customer base as compared to the Big Corporations to stay in business, or that you will just be bought out by one of said Corporations. That is one of the big reason why large corporate monopolies are bad -- they have a tendency to squash potential competition.
If you let the Government push around the companies you don't like, soon they'll start pushing around the companies you do like.
Or, as in more and more recent cases, the company will push the government around. For example, the MPAA et al buying the DMCA.
I patent the act of placing one's body onto an object commonly known as a "bed," typically covering same body with items known as "blankets," with the intent of closing one's eyes and descending into a state of semiconsciousness with the intent of resting oneself. All persons who engage in this act are now hereby required to remit a royalty fee of $1 every time they engage in same.
This thread brings up an interesting thought regarding US vs. international law. The MPAA/USDoJ will go nuts trying to enforce a US law against a foreign person if the MPAA is being screwed (case in point: Jon Johansen), but they won't enforce US law covering a US organization that is engaged in international trade if the MPAA is profiting from the illegal activity (the MPAA again, and the conflict between region coding/price fixing and the Sherman Anti-trust act someone pointed out earlier in this thread). Hmmm...the words "corporate republic" come to mind.
They are required by law to do so. If they call you again, I believe you can do nasty damage to them in the form of a lawsuit. Anybody got more info on this?
Say "Please put me on your do-not-call list." Then if they call you again, they are liable for $500 per violation. See the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
"Microsoft has a tough job ahead of it. If it wants to unseat Sony in the #1 position, and fend off a charging Nintendo, then the Xbox had better do something that the other consoles can't.":)
Of course it'll do something the other consoles can't: BSOD.
The USDoJ's current plan is to split M$ into two parts: an OS company and an applications company. As I have stated before, the OS company _will still have a monopoly_. IOW, the OS company will be able to charge pretty much whatever it pleases due to lack of competition. However, if the USDoJ were to create at least two OS companies from the former entity known as Microsoft, there would be direct competition between the two. This would drive end-user prices down. Incidentally, the same thing can also be applied to the applications company.
I'm at a *.edu site, and yesterday I had to try 27 SERVERS on EFnet before I could find one that would let me connect. That's ridiculous. And no, that is no exaggeration. Guess what the majority of the non-allowing servers told me? "You are not authorized to use this server." If a server isn't prepared to accept clients, it shouldn't be linked to the network. PERIOD. And by "clients," I mean global clients, not just clients within the server's own ISP.
FWIH, most of the servers that restrict their usage as such do so for one of two reasons: 1) DoS attacks or other related abuse, or 2) bots. I don't mean to sound like a troll here, but when you link to an IRC network, those are risks you take. And you don't solve them by effectively banning *@*. If a server on any other network did that, just imagine how fast they'd be delinked. Yet EFnet puts up with it.
And be careful of Hotmail, and Beef-Cake.com ( A South Park Site). One wrong keystroke and it's porn city. Unless, of course, that is what you are looking for....
Or the White House's web site. Not that our current President would mind having pr0n around...
Slashdot Mirror
The electoral college is merely a method of having the people who voted for the president vote via proxy. There has only been one faithless elector in the past 200+ years of history.
But the problem is, the electors don't vote in proportion to the popular vote. In many/most states, ALL the electors from that state are required to vote one particular way or the other according to what the voters of that state decide. This may look feasible upon first glance, but here's an example that brings it down very quickly:
Candidate A wins 60% of the state's popular vote, Candidate B wins 40%
Candidate A therefore wins the state's electoral votes (all of them, mind you)
The state has, say, 50 electoral votes
Candidate A therefore wins 50 electoral votes (100% of the state's influence), whereas if done proportionally by the popular vote, they would have only won 30 electoral votes (60% of the state's influence). Since only 270 electoral votes are required to win the election, this can make quite a difference.
=================================
The American electoral college system was established because of the unique balance of power created between state and individual representation. If people want to change it, they should attack it within its rightful context, rather than playing numbers games with possible outcomes.
The main reason why the EC was created was that at the time, there was no way of knowing that people in X part of the country would know anything about (and thus be able to render an educated decision about) a candidate from Y part. But now, being the Information Age that this is, this argument falls flat on its face. This is one of the big arguments people use against the EC system -- it is waaaaaaay outdated.
=================================
Surely there's someone here who can give us an estimate of how long it would take?
The previous world record was 102800 feet, set by Captain Joseph Kittinger in 1960. IIRC, he freefell for between four and four-and-a-half minutes, and pulled at an unusually high altitude (20000' or thereabouts). So it follows that a freefall from 160000' would probably take in the neighborhood of 7-8 minutes.
Yes, I am a skydiver.
=================================
I see now... Minesweeper is the enemy of encryption
;)
So does this mean that Minesweeper is illegal under the DMCA?
=================================
My favorite patent of all time is for a cat "laser excercise" device ... basically you shine a lazer at the floor and the cat chases it .. but lord its patented. the patent holder obviously has a sense of humour. its as good an idea as anything I've seen patented recently ... anyone have a link to this?
Here it is.
=================================
Am I being paranoid^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconcerned that MSs "theft" could be their carefully orchestrated, poorly disguised effort to discredit/destroy Open Source through oppresive application of litigation?
Not at all. Just take a look at what the MPAA and RIAA are doing...
=================================
another huge corporate monopoly. That seems to be the trend these days. Large Company A merging with Large Company B, creating a massive corporate organization and its inevitable result on end users and government. It's all about the bottom line nowadays.
=================================
Exactly why doesn't the RIAA just distribute encrypted files? If the player doesn't have the right key, it can't play.
That's what the MPAA did with DVDs and CSS. And look how long it took to break the encryption...
=================================
Of course this would not help tried to land...
Sure it would. A "traffic pattern" system could be used, similar to what is used at most airports. IOW, head north at this altitude, then turn west and descend to ###, then turn south... Not that enforcement would be that easy though. Would we have "air police" who would have radar guns and hover around watching for speeders? If so, how would they "pull over" someone?
=================================
Minors CAN SO own property. I had a bank account in my name when I was a minor.
And was the name of at least one of your parents on it? I bet it was. BTW, bank accounts opened in this way are partially the parent's property, because even though it is "your" account, the bank will give you a hard time about getting your parent's name off the account once you turn 18.
=================================
And indeed, the very protocol itself is designed to make the service easy to shut down in the event that Napster "loses" in court.
The "centralized server" model is what allows this quick-and-easy shutdown. As for the protocol itself, it's basically just a tweaked IRC protocol (RFC 1459).
=================================
Mr Gore: Will you follow in President Clinton's footsteps regarding White House Interns?
=================================
The US is a free enough country that anyone can start their own AOL, Microsoft, Time/Warner or whatever.
True, but there's the (significant) chance that you either won't have enough of a customer base as compared to the Big Corporations to stay in business, or that you will just be bought out by one of said Corporations. That is one of the big reason why large corporate monopolies are bad -- they have a tendency to squash potential competition.
If you let the Government push around the companies you don't like, soon they'll start pushing around the companies you do like.
Or, as in more and more recent cases, the company will push the government around. For example, the MPAA et al buying the DMCA.
=================================
I patent the act of placing one's body onto an object commonly known as a "bed," typically covering same body with items known as "blankets," with the intent of closing one's eyes and descending into a state of semiconsciousness with the intent of resting oneself. All persons who engage in this act are now hereby required to remit a royalty fee of $1 every time they engage in same.
=================================
This thread brings up an interesting thought regarding US vs. international law. The MPAA/USDoJ will go nuts trying to enforce a US law against a foreign person if the MPAA is being screwed (case in point: Jon Johansen), but they won't enforce US law covering a US organization that is engaged in international trade if the MPAA is profiting from the illegal activity (the MPAA again, and the conflict between region coding/price fixing and the Sherman Anti-trust act someone pointed out earlier in this thread). Hmmm...the words "corporate republic" come to mind.
=================================
If they are ever found to be a monopoly, they loose all their copyrights...
Does this mean Microsoft will be losing all of its copyrights?
=================================
This is all fine and dandy, until you get FAX SPAMMED!
Don't remember the exact name of the law, but I do remember that this is a violation of federal law in the US.
=================================
They are required by law to do so. If they call you again, I believe you can do nasty damage to them in the form of a lawsuit. Anybody got more info on this?
Say "Please put me on your do-not-call list." Then if they call you again, they are liable for $500 per violation. See the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
=================================
If they don't make O'Reilly gift certificates, they should
... Auto Parts
I sure hope they do...certain parts of my car need replacing.
O O O O'Reilly
=================================
"Microsoft has a tough job ahead of it. If it wants to unseat Sony in the #1 position, and fend off a charging Nintendo, then the Xbox had better do something that the other consoles can't." :)
Of course it'll do something the other consoles can't: BSOD.
=================================
The USDoJ's current plan is to split M$ into two parts: an OS company and an applications company. As I have stated before, the OS company _will still have a monopoly_. IOW, the OS company will be able to charge pretty much whatever it pleases due to lack of competition. However, if the USDoJ were to create at least two OS companies from the former entity known as Microsoft, there would be direct competition between the two. This would drive end-user prices down. Incidentally, the same thing can also be applied to the applications company.
=================================
Ext2 sucks. I run Linux at home and if I used Ext2 not only would it be unreadable from W2K, it would also be unreadable from my windows95 partition.
You can read ext2fs partitions from Win9x. Just grab a copy of ltools.
=================================
I'm at a *.edu site, and yesterday I had to try 27 SERVERS on EFnet before I could find one that would let me connect. That's ridiculous. And no, that is no exaggeration. Guess what the majority of the non-allowing servers told me? "You are not authorized to use this server." If a server isn't prepared to accept clients, it shouldn't be linked to the network. PERIOD. And by "clients," I mean global clients, not just clients within the server's own ISP.
FWIH, most of the servers that restrict their usage as such do so for one of two reasons: 1) DoS attacks or other related abuse, or 2) bots. I don't mean to sound like a troll here, but when you link to an IRC network, those are risks you take. And you don't solve them by effectively banning *@*. If a server on any other network did that, just imagine how fast they'd be delinked. Yet EFnet puts up with it.
=================================
And be careful of Hotmail, and Beef-Cake.com ( A South Park Site). One wrong keystroke and it's porn city. Unless, of course, that is what you are looking for....
Or the White House's web site. Not that our current President would mind having pr0n around...
=================================
I wonder when we'll end up with a small fusion reactor on top of the processor (:
LOL. Wonder what would happen if you tried to overclock something like that...would your computer become a mini-Chernobyl?
=================================