[Getting back to the "Ask Slashdot" question...] When I left work last Tuesday after doing my "shutdown activities," I noticed that people largely fell into two categories: 1) those that have some money saved (they were the ones that left feeling not too worried and acting pretty relaxed) and 2) those that are living paycheck to paycheck (those were the ones that looked really stressed out and scared). Knowing that retroactive pay is in the offing makes this shutdown bearable in the short term. But that doesn't help the folks in the second group.
If the purpose of redrawing state boundaries (an absolutely impossible proposition) is to come up with a better alternative to the "winner take all" aspect of the Electoral College, just don't make the College such a "winner take all" proposition. Since most folks have figured out that amending the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College will never happen, the next best alternative is to make electoral votes proportional by selecting presidential electors by congressional district. This gives the more rural areas somewhat better representation without overly skewing the results. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution gives each state legislature the authority to determine how it chooses its electors, so such a change is much easier to accomplish than amendments to the Constitution (which require a 2/3 vote by each house of Congress and adoption by 3/4 of the states).
Maine and Nebraska already have their electors selected this way, and Virginia and Pennsylvania have put forward similar proposals. This system preserves states' rights, yet allows for a more representative result in the Electoral College.
Clearly, the lack of original movies is at the heart of the problem. I looked at a newspaper this past spring, and of the twenty or so movies in the big theaters, only about three or four were original screenplays, or adaptations that were not from movies.
Once upon a time, sequels were ASSUMED to be bad - so few had been successful. But ever since Star Wars, and the advent of brand merchandising (think of the those stuffed Wookies and Luke Skywalker action figures), sequels and remakes started getting a second look.
The latest trend now is to make three movies in one shoot (LOTR and Pirates of the Caribbean). So don't look for any relief soon - if Hollywood can make money off bad movies (and there are a LOT of bad movies) they will keep making them.
This is just more drivel from the same scientists who can't even predict next Tuesday's weather. If we are in a global warming stage, we have passed the point of no return, in which case we better figure out how to adapt. These guys talk like there is a magic switch to turn global warming on and off - there ain't no such thing, boys and girls!
Point of fact - for most of the earth's history, ther were no polar ice caps, and the earth's temperature was far higher than today. There didn't seem to be any shortage of life on the planet (albeit most of it was reptilian in nature) and plant life was plentiful. There is NO evidence that if we enter another warming cycle that water would mysteriously disappear - if anything there would likely be more water available rather than less, since it would not be locked up in ice caps.
If we have a problem, it is POPULATION. Witness the developing countries that are striving to improve their conditions. When you have six live births per family as they do in most of these countries, and a desire to lower infant mortality and at the same time improve quality of life and increase industrialization, you are going to see more pollution, period, much less the bogeyman of "greenhouse gases."
Slashdot needs to stop putting this climate foolishness up on the site - after all, if you look at the other articles, most of it relates to energy sucking technology!
This latest round about scientists being muzzled is utter and total bullshit. Between blogs, Slashdot, and environmental activist sites, these guys have absolutely NO problem getting out their point of view, either directly or indirectly.
OK folks - this whole response is a good explanation as to why we had a dot com bust in 2001. While bookkeeping 101 says "Assets - liabilities = net worth or equity," the joker in the deck is market capitalization of public corporations. The writer of the referenced article seems to have confused the two. Market capitalization is not equity, but only a portion of the equity represented by outstanding shares of stock. (Market Cap = # of Outstanding Shares of Stock x Price per Share). This number can and does change daily. Since Blockbuster is trading at a measly $3.54 v. Netflix $27.73, it stands to reason that Netflix market capitalization is likely to be significantly higher. Sure Netflix has no debt, but with only $140 million in revenue, versus Blockbuster's $1.3 BILLION in revenue for the last three months, it is not in a position to borrow either.
The market cap here is a leading indicator that is looking at what is happening to the video rental business, namely it is imploding. So far, the market is looking at the fact that the box stores have not responded well to upstart ideas like Netflix, hence the higher share price of Netflix. Having said that, Netflix is not as huge and well established, and could easily be outflanked by newer technologies, like broadband (both wired and wireless) that have potential of bringing those same movies to the viewer instantly. Netflix knows this, and so has not leveraged itself. Blockbuster had no choice - they needed to leverage in order to continue to receive product and just stay in business. Getting into a fight with Carl Icahn obviously has not hapled matters, and the company is adrfit at this point. They have drastically cut expenses from a year ago, per their last quarterly.
So if you seriously think you are going to make a killing on Blockbuster stock, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.
This whole business is such nonsense. We have seen lakes dry and then grow and then dry again, glaciers have grown to cover the earth and then shrink again. So why is someone hyperventilating about Siberia? This will happen no matter what. Just get over it!
This bill does absolutely nothing. How does open-source fix anything in this case? If you have voting machines put together in 50 different ways by 50 different tech solutions, who does one call to fix a problem? Who are you holding accountable for security of the votes?
The answer is state control versus corporate control. The state (either all 50 or more likely the federal government) is going to be the one dictating the "open" standard. And if it's a choice between corporate control and government control, I'll take corporate, thank you very much.
After all, if they don't live up to my standard, I can always fire them.
OK - "50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market. In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."
That means MS and Palm accounted for 87.7% of the handhld OS in 2003, but only 79.3% in 2004. Maybe MS is growing, but so is something else. Linux maybe? Or more likely the combination of cellphones with PDAs and proprietary software?
I don't understand all the hand-wringing about this merger. After the 1984 breakup, all that was left of AT&T was the long-distance service and Bell Labs. They spun that off into Lucent, which crashed and burned. And we all know what happened to long distance service. They dabbled unsuccessfully in cable and wireless - both spectacular failures. This merger is simply the last gasp of a burned out gas giant, with little resemblance to the AT&T of 20 years ago.
And has anyone noticed that the telecommunications industry has changed slightly in that time?
I don't understand the fuss about online bill paying. I can't imagine using ANY online bill paying system through a third party like Intuit, since nearly all utility and credit card companies provide for direct ACH payments directly from a bank account. Once set up, you don't need to interact online at all, increasing security and significantly decreasing the risk of identity theft. Other than being possibly unable to download your transactions directly into Quicken, I don't see where this is a big deal at all.
I said "hi!" - After the A/C went three times, not to mention numerous problems with spark plugs fouling, and various other assorted problems, I said "bye"!
I signed up for it,but I am not sure who I want to use it with. Maybe all those businesses who want an e-mail address? Let's find out if they REALLY mean they won't sell my address to spammers!!!
Google is spending its time maintaining an unparalleled search engine, and they simply haven't had either the time or inclination to send someone around counting up all the capacities of all the hard drives, so that some fool can ask how much capacity they have.
However, now that the company is contemplating going public, people DO want to know the answers to these questions, and as a publicly traded company, they may be required to answer many of these questions.
So expect to see the company go from mostly techies to mostly lawyers!
All of that's true, but what about the sheer number of PEOPLE - we have had a sixfold increase in population in 100 years, but no one seems to mention this anywhere.
Having read practically every article there is on global warming, your assessment that the predictions have fallen flat on its face is true.
All the focus has been on the production of pollutants, but these fools seem to ignore the fact that the world's population has increased sixfold in less than two hundred years - that undoubtedly is going to have more of an impact than a bunch of factories.
While I think that the only theory that has any credibility is abrupt climate shift, short of mass genocide there isn't much than we can do.
But try telling that to some of these scientists who think they are God, just because they tweaked a climate model and ran it on a supercomputer.
No, the article says the issue is about the contractors carrying GPS cellphones. Like you I would have figured the vehicles, but since they are private contractors, I guess the state wouldn't want to pay for installing devices in trucks they didn't own.
If we were only talking about state employees - no question - they can and should be required to have GPS.
However, these are PRIVATE companies hired during heavy snowstorms to do contract plowing in addition to state workers. And their concern isn't privacy, it's billing. The state should be concerned too - you could have a truck running just about anywhere with its plow up - do they still get credit for plowing?
Sounds more like a simple issue of how one gets paid rather than some grand scheme of invading privacy!
First, gerrymandering IS evil and should be eliminated. And lets give credit where credit is due - the term "gerrymander" comes from Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, not Chicago and not Mayor Daley. And by the way, Governor Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, served as Governor for two terms from 1810 - 1812. (Back then they had elections EVERY YEAR) It was his support for the odd shaped redistricting bill that lead to his defeat as Governor - he lives on in infamy only as a name.
Where all this stuff is coming from on discrimination is beyond me. Aside from the fact that it is is offtopic, a lot of it is just plain wrong. Felony disenfranchisement is more ancient than gerrymandering is, (going back to Roman times) and it is only recently when Human Rights Watch got into the act that the disproportionate aspect of the law has gotten any serious attention, not just in Florida but in those states that still retain it for ex-felons (15 states - and 5 of them have curtailed that disenfranchisement). Note that 47 out of 50 states do disenfranchise felons during incarceration, 29 during probation, and 32 during parole.
And one antidote to gerrymandering is voting - far too few people do! You don't need to make it more confusing with nonsense like single transferable votes - if people can't figure out butterfly ballots, they aren't going to figure that out either.
Consider that in this past November election, the city of Hartford Connecticut (pop. 121,578) elected Eddie Perez Mayor with 7,590 votes. That is 6.25% of the population electing their mayor. Figuring 70% of the population is old enough to vote, only 52% of that population is registered, and only 25% of those REGISTERED came out to vote - i.e. 13% of the eligible voting population.
Now the majority of the city is black and hispanic, and there are no issues here of gerrymandering - just apathy. Sounds like a bigger threat to democracy than computers and maps!
I have a phone in Florida that is not being used - I might switch it to a cell phone number. Can I do that in another part of the country (i.e. New England) and still keep the same (FL) phone number?
Slashdot Mirror
[Getting back to the "Ask Slashdot" question...] When I left work last Tuesday after doing my "shutdown activities," I noticed that people largely fell into two categories: 1) those that have some money saved (they were the ones that left feeling not too worried and acting pretty relaxed) and 2) those that are living paycheck to paycheck (those were the ones that looked really stressed out and scared). Knowing that retroactive pay is in the offing makes this shutdown bearable in the short term. But that doesn't help the folks in the second group.
If the purpose of redrawing state boundaries (an absolutely impossible proposition) is to come up with a better alternative to the "winner take all" aspect of the Electoral College, just don't make the College such a "winner take all" proposition. Since most folks have figured out that amending the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College will never happen, the next best alternative is to make electoral votes proportional by selecting presidential electors by congressional district. This gives the more rural areas somewhat better representation without overly skewing the results. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution gives each state legislature the authority to determine how it chooses its electors, so such a change is much easier to accomplish than amendments to the Constitution (which require a 2/3 vote by each house of Congress and adoption by 3/4 of the states).
Maine and Nebraska already have their electors selected this way, and Virginia and Pennsylvania have put forward similar proposals. This system preserves states' rights, yet allows for a more representative result in the Electoral College.
Clearly, the lack of original movies is at the heart of the problem. I looked at a newspaper this past spring, and of the twenty or so movies in the big theaters, only about three or four were original screenplays, or adaptations that were not from movies.
Once upon a time, sequels were ASSUMED to be bad - so few had been successful. But ever since Star Wars, and the advent of brand merchandising (think of the those stuffed Wookies and Luke Skywalker action figures), sequels and remakes started getting a second look.
The latest trend now is to make three movies in one shoot (LOTR and Pirates of the Caribbean). So don't look for any relief soon - if Hollywood can make money off bad movies (and there are a LOT of bad movies) they will keep making them.
This is just more drivel from the same scientists who can't even predict next Tuesday's weather. If we are in a global warming stage, we have passed the point of no return, in which case we better figure out how to adapt. These guys talk like there is a magic switch to turn global warming on and off - there ain't no such thing, boys and girls!
Point of fact - for most of the earth's history, ther were no polar ice caps, and the earth's temperature was far higher than today. There didn't seem to be any shortage of life on the planet (albeit most of it was reptilian in nature) and plant life was plentiful. There is NO evidence that if we enter another warming cycle that water would mysteriously disappear - if anything there would likely be more water available rather than less, since it would not be locked up in ice caps.
If we have a problem, it is POPULATION. Witness the developing countries that are striving to improve their conditions. When you have six live births per family as they do in most of these countries, and a desire to lower infant mortality and at the same time improve quality of life and increase industrialization, you are going to see more pollution, period, much less the bogeyman of "greenhouse gases."
Slashdot needs to stop putting this climate foolishness up on the site - after all, if you look at the other articles, most of it relates to energy sucking technology!
This latest round about scientists being muzzled is utter and total bullshit. Between blogs, Slashdot, and environmental activist sites, these guys have absolutely NO problem getting out their point of view, either directly or indirectly.
So lets see, the sea level rising means that Los Angeles, New York, and Miami all go underwater. And this is a problem why?
OK folks - this whole response is a good explanation as to why we had a dot com bust in 2001. While bookkeeping 101 says "Assets - liabilities = net worth or equity," the joker in the deck is market capitalization of public corporations. The writer of the referenced article seems to have confused the two. Market capitalization is not equity, but only a portion of the equity represented by outstanding shares of stock. (Market Cap = # of Outstanding Shares of Stock x Price per Share). This number can and does change daily. Since Blockbuster is trading at a measly $3.54 v. Netflix $27.73, it stands to reason that Netflix market capitalization is likely to be significantly higher. Sure Netflix has no debt, but with only $140 million in revenue, versus Blockbuster's $1.3 BILLION in revenue for the last three months, it is not in a position to borrow either.
The market cap here is a leading indicator that is looking at what is happening to the video rental business, namely it is imploding. So far, the market is looking at the fact that the box stores have not responded well to upstart ideas like Netflix, hence the higher share price of Netflix. Having said that, Netflix is not as huge and well established, and could easily be outflanked by newer technologies, like broadband (both wired and wireless) that have potential of bringing those same movies to the viewer instantly. Netflix knows this, and so has not leveraged itself. Blockbuster had no choice - they needed to leverage in order to continue to receive product and just stay in business. Getting into a fight with Carl Icahn obviously has not hapled matters, and the company is adrfit at this point. They have drastically cut expenses from a year ago, per their last quarterly.
So if you seriously think you are going to make a killing on Blockbuster stock, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.
This whole business is such nonsense. We have seen lakes dry and then grow and then dry again, glaciers have grown to cover the earth and then shrink again. So why is someone hyperventilating about Siberia? This will happen no matter what. Just get over it!
This bill does absolutely nothing. How does open-source fix anything in this case? If you have voting machines put together in 50 different ways by 50 different tech solutions, who does one call to fix a problem? Who are you holding accountable for security of the votes?
The answer is state control versus corporate control. The state (either all 50 or more likely the federal government) is going to be the one dictating the "open" standard. And if it's a choice between corporate control and government control, I'll take corporate, thank you very much.
After all, if they don't live up to my standard, I can always fire them.
Same here - nothing on Firefox, although it did pick up on my adware free version of BearShare Pro.
OK - "50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market. In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."
That means MS and Palm accounted for 87.7% of the handhld OS in 2003, but only 79.3% in 2004. Maybe MS is growing, but so is something else. Linux maybe? Or more likely the combination of cellphones with PDAs and proprietary software?
After reading all these posts - I can see why all the CO2 comes from the U.S.
I don't understand all the hand-wringing about this merger. After the 1984 breakup, all that was left of AT&T was the long-distance service and Bell Labs. They spun that off into Lucent, which crashed and burned. And we all know what happened to long distance service. They dabbled unsuccessfully in cable and wireless - both spectacular failures. This merger is simply the last gasp of a burned out gas giant, with little resemblance to the AT&T of 20 years ago.
And has anyone noticed that the telecommunications industry has changed slightly in that time?
I don't understand the fuss about online bill paying. I can't imagine using ANY online bill paying system through a third party like Intuit, since nearly all utility and credit card companies provide for direct ACH payments directly from a bank account. Once set up, you don't need to interact online at all, increasing security and significantly decreasing the risk of identity theft. Other than being possibly unable to download your transactions directly into Quicken, I don't see where this is a big deal at all.
You at least have to love the acronym NIPLAC. Sounds like baby formula.
Seems like this form of debugging isn't too different from alpha testing. I don't see how this saves any work.
I said "hi!" - After the A/C went three times, not to mention numerous problems with spark plugs fouling, and various other assorted problems, I said "bye"!
I signed up for it,but I am not sure who I want to use it with. Maybe all those businesses who want an e-mail address? Let's find out if they REALLY mean they won't sell my address to spammers!!!
Google is spending its time maintaining an unparalleled search engine, and they simply haven't had either the time or inclination to send someone around counting up all the capacities of all the hard drives, so that some fool can ask how much capacity they have.
However, now that the company is contemplating going public, people DO want to know the answers to these questions, and as a publicly traded company, they may be required to answer many of these questions.
So expect to see the company go from mostly techies to mostly lawyers!
All of that's true, but what about the sheer number of PEOPLE - we have had a sixfold increase in population in 100 years, but no one seems to mention this anywhere.
Talk about bovine methane..................
Having read practically every article there is on global warming, your assessment that the predictions have fallen flat on its face is true.
All the focus has been on the production of pollutants, but these fools seem to ignore the fact that the world's population has increased sixfold in less than two hundred years - that undoubtedly is going to have more of an impact than a bunch of factories.
While I think that the only theory that has any credibility is abrupt climate shift, short of mass genocide there isn't much than we can do.
But try telling that to some of these scientists who think they are God, just because they tweaked a climate model and ran it on a supercomputer.
No, the article says the issue is about the contractors carrying GPS cellphones. Like you I would have figured the vehicles, but since they are private contractors, I guess the state wouldn't want to pay for installing devices in trucks they didn't own.
If we were only talking about state employees - no question - they can and should be required to have GPS.
However, these are PRIVATE companies hired during heavy snowstorms to do contract plowing in addition to state workers. And their concern isn't privacy, it's billing. The state should be concerned too - you could have a truck running just about anywhere with its plow up - do they still get credit for plowing?
Sounds more like a simple issue of how one gets paid rather than some grand scheme of invading privacy!
First, gerrymandering IS evil and should be eliminated. And lets give credit where credit is due - the term "gerrymander" comes from Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, not Chicago and not Mayor Daley. And by the way, Governor Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, served as Governor for two terms from 1810 - 1812. (Back then they had elections EVERY YEAR) It was his support for the odd shaped redistricting bill that lead to his defeat as Governor - he lives on in infamy only as a name.
Where all this stuff is coming from on discrimination is beyond me. Aside from the fact that it is is offtopic, a lot of it is just plain wrong. Felony disenfranchisement is more ancient than gerrymandering is, (going back to Roman times) and it is only recently when Human Rights Watch got into the act that the disproportionate aspect of the law has gotten any serious attention, not just in Florida but in those states that still retain it for ex-felons (15 states - and 5 of them have curtailed that disenfranchisement). Note that 47 out of 50 states do disenfranchise felons during incarceration, 29 during probation, and 32 during parole.
And one antidote to gerrymandering is voting - far too few people do! You don't need to make it more confusing with nonsense like single transferable votes - if people can't figure out butterfly ballots, they aren't going to figure that out either.
Consider that in this past November election, the city of Hartford Connecticut (pop. 121,578) elected Eddie Perez Mayor with 7,590 votes. That is 6.25% of the population electing their mayor. Figuring 70% of the population is old enough to vote, only 52% of that population is registered, and only 25% of those REGISTERED came out to vote - i.e. 13% of the eligible voting population.
Now the majority of the city is black and hispanic, and there are no issues here of gerrymandering - just apathy. Sounds like a bigger threat to democracy than computers and maps!
I have a phone in Florida that is not being used - I might switch it to a cell phone number. Can I do that in another part of the country (i.e. New England) and still keep the same (FL) phone number?