I'm unable to fully articulate how uncomfortable this statement makes me.
I'm glad I made you profoundly uncomfortable. This is how I feel about our political system all the time.
1) Don't participate, and just grumble about the choices other people make; 2) Participate actively in shaping your political system & your society, secure in the knowledge that even if your guy loses, your rights are protected under the constitution, and you can continue trying to bring people around to your way of thinking; 3) Let your society collapse into a patchwork of warring tribal factions (See: Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan), with power falling to the most ruthles.
For the sake of argument, which of these options would you recommend if the system were well and truly rigged? None of them seem appropriate to me. Participating in a broken system only legitimizes it.
I realize you may not see our current system as broken beyond repair. But you must at least acknowledge the possibility. How do you fix a rigged system from within the system? You cannot, and this is why we need a way for the people to express that they have no faith in the system and to dissolve it without resorting to bloodshed.
Also, our rights are protected by the constitution? Where have you been?
Saying, "Right, Hatta wasn't happy with the results, let's do it all over again, and let's get some new candidates on stage this time," is a recipe for #3. Your wishes do not trump the wishes of millions of other people who did take the time to support candidates & go out and vote.
Of course not. I'm just one person. Does your vote trump the wishes of millions of people who don't have enough faith in the system to even show up?
Oh, no no, I don't have a good view of human nature at all. People are inherently selfish and it is not despite this, but *because* of this that the biggest file sharers are the biggest customers (a statement which, btw, is supported with data.
People who really love a certain band, are the most likely to go out and download the bands entire discography for free. But they are also the group who would be most affected if that band went out of business. So they make a self-interested decision to buy the new album and keep the band working.
On the other hand, people who just want something for free, just want something for free. If that band went away, they'd just download someone elses albums instead. This group is irrelevant since they cannot be converted into purchases, there are no losses from this group.
The tendency to favor the first option in a list is inherent. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Obviously a staunch Obama voter isn't going to vote for McCain just because he's on the top of a list, but statistically there's a significant effect.
On the other hand being able to understand the difference between an example ballot and an actual ballot that's randomized is tightly linked to intelligence. The "too stupid to vote" option should be applied to anyone who can't figure that out.
Actually the losses suffered by the copyright owner through people using illegal copies are quite real. This is because some of the people playing illegally copied games are doing so instead of buying a legitimate copy for themselves.
Only if you ignore the people who would not have bought a copy until they played a pirated copy. Since the biggest pirates are also your biggest customers you can't crack down on one without cracking down on the other.
If not enough people voted for county clerk, then there would be no county clerk. They'd either learn really quick how important the county clerk is and start voting, or they'd get by without one. It's a self correcting problem.
As for voting party lines, party affiliation should not be on ballots. People hold offices, not parties.
Better to have no leader than an illegitimate leader. If the institution installs a leader that does not have popular support then it is already illegitimate. If the people cannot agree on a leader to support, then it's time to dissolve the institution and start over.
For example, do you think that people as right wing as you think FoxNews is would play Family Guy, American Dad the Simpsons and even Married with Children?
Um, yes? First, it makes them money. Second, nothing in any of those shows advocate any positions which would cost them money. Third, it makes them lots and lots of money.
They are touch screen systems. If you keep your finger on them to long you end up with double picking.
That's not the only thing wrong here. A properly designed electronic voting machine will randomize the names of the candidates to avoid giving any one of them an advantage from being on the top of the list. If this voting machine had done this, the double picking errors would be random and not affect the result of the election. That the names are not randomized is a much, much bigger flaw in this voting machine than the double picking bug described here.
They did not build in a default candidate on purpose.
Are you sure of that? If you were coding a voting machine and wanted to influence elections, wouldn't you want your influence to look like a coding error? I'm aware of Hanlon's razor, but whether it's incompetence or malice is irrelevant really. That such errors are so easy to make is a great reason not to use electronic voting machines at all.
Really, all voters should be presumed to cast a "none of the above" ballot unless they specifically vote otherwise. Yes, even those who abstain by not showing up. Failure to even show up is a vote of no confidence in the system itself, which is a very important statement and deserves to be counted.
If the majority of the population doesn't even show up to vote, that is a de facto vote against the system. Nobody can claim a mandate to govern under such circumstances. Any government elected under such circumstances cannot be considered legitimate.
Yes, it mainly stops the physical effects of anxiety. Shaking hands or an uneven voice are caused by the effects of adrenalin, which propranolol blocks. Psychologically, it only affects anxiety in an indirect way, by reassuring performers that they won't have to deal with their voice wavering or fingers trembling.
When I was premed we experimented on fish with several neurotransmitters. Since I was in a frat, I eventually found myself doing shots of them (about 0.1cc each). They all tasted bitter.
Their doctor/health care professional, however, would be taking so huge a legal risk to recommend or order use of a product as a medication not FDA approved for that usage, they would probably not do that
That's nonsense, it happens all the time. One example, Propranolol is a beta blocker originally indicated as a heart medication. It's quite effective and very safe. It's never been approved for treating anxiety, but doctors hand it out like candy to musicians and performers to handle stage fright. There's nothing illegal about a doctor prescribing an approved drug for an off-label indication.
If it can't be patented and net drug companies billions of $$$; I doubt there will be a company to spend the millions for the research required to get "bitter-taste-based medication" through FDA approval.
The nice thing is, if these "standard bitter substances" have been FDA approved for one application they can be used for any application. You don't have to get FDA approval for each indication, so if these are already known substances it might be pretty easy to get a product made.
Ever scratched a disc? Then you might see the the benefit in having backups of your software. Even if you've never scratched a disc, wouldn't it be nice to not have to worry about the media? Just hand your kids a DVDR and say "have fun" while the original is safely in the closet. There are, in fact, significant non-infringing uses.
The time invested in writing such a book is non-trivial in terms of missed research time for the authors.
Ideally, a researcher who writes a chapter for a collaborative textbook could put it on his CV just like the rest of his publications. Publications are the currency of academia, so they actually gain by contributing, instead of losing.
The quality (both print and content) of such a professional text is also generally higher than a course pack would allow.
I disagree. The best professors I've had have been the ones who made their own coursework, and it's always been superior in content to textbooks I've found on the same subject. Review articles are also generally superior, where editorial input is minimal compared to textbooks. As for print quality, it would not be hard to find volunteers to mark it up for LaTeX. Or just leave it in HTML, whatever. Typography is highly overrated.
Under this model the reviewers still need to be paid by someone (their universities for the most part) for a task that they are either less proficient at or less interested in.
Peer reviewers in academia already work for free. And since a paper textbook has to be reviewed anyway to see if it's appropriate for their class, it can't be any worse than the current situation. If you're a professor, and you're comparing two textbooks for your class, wouldn't you be swayed by the textbook you could contribute error corrections to *and* offer your students for free?
It takes upwards of 15 minute to print a single chapter because it adds text with your name and e-mail address assigned to the account (for DRM ) to every page.
Wow. I wonder if they have any idea how easy it is to dump postscript output to a file, run it through sed, and produce a clean document.
This is exactly right. Somehow the fine article proposes "saving the textbook industry" as something we'd actually want to do. The textbook industry adds no value to your education. All value comes from the university. The best thing for everyone, student, professor, parent, or administrator is for the textbook industry to die and be replaced by online, collaborative, peer reviewed textbooks. The textbook publishing industry adds no value, and is nothing but a parasite on the education industry.
FWIW, I wish there was a window manager that set it's own paradigm.
There are several families of window managers that are pretty much unique to UNIX environments. Someone already mentioned Window Maker, there's also Afterstep if you like NextStep. There's also the Fluxbox/Openbox family. There's Enlightenment too.
Although if you want a wholly new paradigm that simply doesn't exist on other platforms, try a tiling window manager. Ratpoison/Awesome/evilwm/wmii/ion, there's actually a lot of these. Nobody who's used one of these window managers can accuse the Open Source community of not innovating.
it'd be nice if there was a window manager that set the standard for FOSS GUI desktops.
There will never be a wm that "sets the standard" because interface choice is too personal. Think of the actual physical desktops people use, and all the ways they choose to organize things. You can't expect computerized desktops to be any more consistent.
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I'm unable to fully articulate how uncomfortable this statement makes me.
I'm glad I made you profoundly uncomfortable. This is how I feel about our political system all the time.
1) Don't participate, and just grumble about the choices other people make;
2) Participate actively in shaping your political system & your society, secure in the knowledge that even if your guy loses, your rights are protected under the constitution, and you can continue trying to bring people around to your way of thinking;
3) Let your society collapse into a patchwork of warring tribal factions (See: Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan), with power falling to the most ruthles.
For the sake of argument, which of these options would you recommend if the system were well and truly rigged? None of them seem appropriate to me. Participating in a broken system only legitimizes it.
I realize you may not see our current system as broken beyond repair. But you must at least acknowledge the possibility. How do you fix a rigged system from within the system? You cannot, and this is why we need a way for the people to express that they have no faith in the system and to dissolve it without resorting to bloodshed.
Also, our rights are protected by the constitution? Where have you been?
Saying, "Right, Hatta wasn't happy with the results, let's do it all over again, and let's get some new candidates on stage this time," is a recipe for #3. Your wishes do not trump the wishes of millions of other people who did take the time to support candidates & go out and vote.
Of course not. I'm just one person. Does your vote trump the wishes of millions of people who don't have enough faith in the system to even show up?
Oh, no no, I don't have a good view of human nature at all. People are inherently selfish and it is not despite this, but *because* of this that the biggest file sharers are the biggest customers (a statement which, btw, is supported with data.
People who really love a certain band, are the most likely to go out and download the bands entire discography for free. But they are also the group who would be most affected if that band went out of business. So they make a self-interested decision to buy the new album and keep the band working.
On the other hand, people who just want something for free, just want something for free. If that band went away, they'd just download someone elses albums instead. This group is irrelevant since they cannot be converted into purchases, there are no losses from this group.
The tendency to favor the first option in a list is inherent. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Obviously a staunch Obama voter isn't going to vote for McCain just because he's on the top of a list, but statistically there's a significant effect.
On the other hand being able to understand the difference between an example ballot and an actual ballot that's randomized is tightly linked to intelligence. The "too stupid to vote" option should be applied to anyone who can't figure that out.
Actually the losses suffered by the copyright owner through people using illegal copies are quite real. This is because some of the people playing illegally copied games are doing so instead of buying a legitimate copy for themselves.
Only if you ignore the people who would not have bought a copy until they played a pirated copy. Since the biggest pirates are also your biggest customers you can't crack down on one without cracking down on the other.
By modding the DVD-ROM (which he apparently did), he cannot run his own software - he can only run copied games that are already signed by Microsoft.
You mean like backups of his licensed software? You just made a pretty strong argument that there are non-infringing uses of this hack.
Paper ballots are not randomized
That is a design flaw. Whoever decides which candidate goes on top of the ballot has a lot of influence over the election.
If not enough people voted for county clerk, then there would be no county clerk. They'd either learn really quick how important the county clerk is and start voting, or they'd get by without one. It's a self correcting problem.
As for voting party lines, party affiliation should not be on ballots. People hold offices, not parties.
Better to have no leader than an illegitimate leader. If the institution installs a leader that does not have popular support then it is already illegitimate. If the people cannot agree on a leader to support, then it's time to dissolve the institution and start over.
For example, do you think that people as right wing as you think FoxNews is would play Family Guy, American Dad the Simpsons and even Married with Children?
Um, yes? First, it makes them money. Second, nothing in any of those shows advocate any positions which would cost them money. Third, it makes them lots and lots of money.
They are touch screen systems. If you keep your finger on them to long you end up with double picking.
That's not the only thing wrong here. A properly designed electronic voting machine will randomize the names of the candidates to avoid giving any one of them an advantage from being on the top of the list. If this voting machine had done this, the double picking errors would be random and not affect the result of the election. That the names are not randomized is a much, much bigger flaw in this voting machine than the double picking bug described here.
They did not build in a default candidate on purpose.
Are you sure of that? If you were coding a voting machine and wanted to influence elections, wouldn't you want your influence to look like a coding error? I'm aware of Hanlon's razor, but whether it's incompetence or malice is irrelevant really. That such errors are so easy to make is a great reason not to use electronic voting machines at all.
Really, all voters should be presumed to cast a "none of the above" ballot unless they specifically vote otherwise. Yes, even those who abstain by not showing up. Failure to even show up is a vote of no confidence in the system itself, which is a very important statement and deserves to be counted.
If the majority of the population doesn't even show up to vote, that is a de facto vote against the system. Nobody can claim a mandate to govern under such circumstances. Any government elected under such circumstances cannot be considered legitimate.
Yes, it mainly stops the physical effects of anxiety. Shaking hands or an uneven voice are caused by the effects of adrenalin, which propranolol blocks. Psychologically, it only affects anxiety in an indirect way, by reassuring performers that they won't have to deal with their voice wavering or fingers trembling.
I must be the only person who read his statement to mean that he took shots of fish.
When I was premed we experimented on fish with several neurotransmitters. Since I was in a frat, I eventually found myself doing shots of them (about 0.1cc each). They all tasted bitter.
That's odd, what kind of fish were they?
Their doctor/health care professional, however, would be taking so huge a legal risk to recommend or order use of a product as a medication not FDA approved for that usage, they would probably not do that
That's nonsense, it happens all the time. One example, Propranolol is a beta blocker originally indicated as a heart medication. It's quite effective and very safe. It's never been approved for treating anxiety, but doctors hand it out like candy to musicians and performers to handle stage fright. There's nothing illegal about a doctor prescribing an approved drug for an off-label indication.
If it can't be patented and net drug companies billions of $$$; I doubt there will be a company to spend the millions for the research required to get "bitter-taste-based medication" through FDA approval.
The nice thing is, if these "standard bitter substances" have been FDA approved for one application they can be used for any application. You don't have to get FDA approval for each indication, so if these are already known substances it might be pretty easy to get a product made.
Ever scratched a disc? Then you might see the the benefit in having backups of your software. Even if you've never scratched a disc, wouldn't it be nice to not have to worry about the media? Just hand your kids a DVDR and say "have fun" while the original is safely in the closet. There are, in fact, significant non-infringing uses.
The time invested in writing such a book is non-trivial in terms of missed research time for the authors.
Ideally, a researcher who writes a chapter for a collaborative textbook could put it on his CV just like the rest of his publications. Publications are the currency of academia, so they actually gain by contributing, instead of losing.
The quality (both print and content) of such a professional text is also generally higher than a course pack would allow.
I disagree. The best professors I've had have been the ones who made their own coursework, and it's always been superior in content to textbooks I've found on the same subject. Review articles are also generally superior, where editorial input is minimal compared to textbooks. As for print quality, it would not be hard to find volunteers to mark it up for LaTeX. Or just leave it in HTML, whatever. Typography is highly overrated.
Under this model the reviewers still need to be paid by someone (their universities for the most part) for a task that they are either less proficient at or less interested in.
Peer reviewers in academia already work for free. And since a paper textbook has to be reviewed anyway to see if it's appropriate for their class, it can't be any worse than the current situation. If you're a professor, and you're comparing two textbooks for your class, wouldn't you be swayed by the textbook you could contribute error corrections to *and* offer your students for free?
It takes upwards of 15 minute to print a single chapter because it adds text with your name and e-mail address assigned to the account (for DRM ) to every page.
Wow. I wonder if they have any idea how easy it is to dump postscript output to a file, run it through sed, and produce a clean document.
Sure it has. Undergrad calculus has gotten a lot simpler in the past 50 years.
This is exactly right. Somehow the fine article proposes "saving the textbook industry" as something we'd actually want to do. The textbook industry adds no value to your education. All value comes from the university. The best thing for everyone, student, professor, parent, or administrator is for the textbook industry to die and be replaced by online, collaborative, peer reviewed textbooks. The textbook publishing industry adds no value, and is nothing but a parasite on the education industry.
Happy kitten means come and sit a spell. Mushroom cloud means someone needs killin'.
I don't want to know what both together would mean.
FWIW, I wish there was a window manager that set it's own paradigm.
There are several families of window managers that are pretty much unique to UNIX environments. Someone already mentioned Window Maker, there's also Afterstep if you like NextStep. There's also the Fluxbox/Openbox family. There's Enlightenment too.
Although if you want a wholly new paradigm that simply doesn't exist on other platforms, try a tiling window manager. Ratpoison/Awesome/evilwm/wmii/ion, there's actually a lot of these. Nobody who's used one of these window managers can accuse the Open Source community of not innovating.
it'd be nice if there was a window manager that set the standard for FOSS GUI desktops.
There will never be a wm that "sets the standard" because interface choice is too personal. Think of the actual physical desktops people use, and all the ways they choose to organize things. You can't expect computerized desktops to be any more consistent.
GDM is for people who are scared of 80x25 character displays, nothing else.