It could also be the case that the machines are altering the vote - either because the software has been fiddled, or the design is (intentionally or otherwise) not suitable for the purpose.
Parallax error? What year vintage are these touch screens? How badly designed is the interface if a half-centimetre error in finger position results in a different box being ticked? How many hotspots does the screen have? How many candidates are represented in that space?
I've seen "touch" screens in the past which had arrays of LEDs and optical detectors arranged around the edge of the screen - is it possible that there are (for example) 8 x 10 hot spots on the screen, with several locations where a hotspot is between candidate buttons? Don't blame the user for poorly designed computer interfaces.
Did you just link to a site where the first paragraph refutes your statement? It says right there - "... claims that it is more dangerous than drink-driving are wrong and will not help to educate motorists about the dangers of inattentive driving." Besides, the issue is with trying to manipulate the controls of any device other than the car. Hands-free phones mean you're only as distracted as if you were talking to someone.
Are you going to suggest banning drivers from talking to their passengers?
How is switching to contract pricing a sign of "cracking down on iPhone unlockers" when it's more easily explained as "switching to a pricing model more likely to sell phones"?
How will this make it harder to jailbreak iPhones?
Is a mobile phone actually a separate product or service to the mobile phone network?
I would have thought that "separate" in this instance would mean, "here, buy our fertilizer for $10/kg cheaper than the other guy, as long as you also buy electricity from DodgeyZap co. for 8c/kWh". Those are truly separate products and services.
With copy protection, it's just too easy for the publishers to rip off their customers. Look at the trivial case of upgrading a computer on which you've got music that is "protected" using any Microsoft DRM scheme. Since Microsoft will not support that DRM scheme next month, the act of upgrading your computer is equated to copyright infringement, and you can no longer access your music.
I've even been involved with one web site where their search engine was licensed software. It required routine renewals, otherwise it would stop working. One day the local support company closed shop, and it took the customer a month with no search box on their website to track down someone who would support the product and sell them a new key.
The best way to validate software is to simply trust the customer to act honourably, while you simultaneously do your best to act honourably towards the customer. Software that deactivates itself or cripples your computer is no better than vigilante justice - it always ends up hurting the innocent.
So this couldn't be an attempt by a service provider to ensure that the cost of providing the service is weighted so that the people who use it more heavily end up paying more?
If you want unlimited broadband, try setting up your own ISP. When you find that the cost of 6Mbps upstream is more expensive than your current ADSL2+ plan, perhaps you'll start to understand how the business works.
For a small office, the simpler option is to have the updates downloaded from a mirror "out there" through a proxy server. Maintaining a mirror is a time-expensive task - I doubt the guy who does PC support on the side when he's not building web sites would appreciate having the extra time sink.
By the time you get to 20 workstations, you have a guy who is employed to maintain the computers - the time sink of maintaining a local mirror might make sense at that point. Then again, downloading updates through a proxy might still be the economical option - mostly due to restricting traffic to just the stuff you actually need to update your computers.
Why download 4GB of archives when the office computers don't need five different media players, fourteen window managers, twelve web browsers, and four different RDBMS?
Insurgent: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially : a rebel not recognized as a belligerent
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this definition preclude being an insurgent anywhere else but their own backyard? So yes, you're strange. If you hadn't imposed a new civil authority, there wouldn't be insurgents.
I think there's a subtle difference between having a few dozen nuclear missiles parked on Cuban soil versus having a country full of angry people cursing your name.
Of course, the policy of "fight them over there" is self fulfilling - by invading the country you're turning all those pissed-off people in to gun-wielding militias. Then you get to point at the gun-wielding militias and say, "See! I told you so!"
There's at least one science fiction story I've read where aliens were influencing the breeding of certain human families to select for lucky genes.
Doesn't winning the greencard lottery count as a similar genetic selection mechanism?
I was unemployed for an extended period due to a change of government - I live in Canberra, Australia, and at election time about 20% of the people employed or contracted to the public service stand to lose their jobs based on federal priorities.
For about six months I was on "new start" payments, while looking for a new programming job. Then one day I woke up and just decided to go apply for a light earth moving course - it turns out that retraining is part of the services available at subsidised rates through the "new start" programme, so I ended up with something constructive to do rather than applying for positions that I knew I'd never actually get.
Operating earthmoving equipment was fun while it lasted, but I never got a real job in the industry - everyone working here was from Sydney (300km away) and I didn't want to move to Sydney to get the job just so I could commute back to Canberra to do the work. I had a partner at the time, which complicated my decision.
Now I'm back in IT, thinking about moving into earthmoving again - with no partner to worry about, this time I'll be prepared to move for an interesting job.
Earthmoving is fun - the kind of fun you can have down the beach fun. Well, when you can work around the fact that you have to build exactly this sandcastle, not just the one that exists in your imagination:)
It's not the urban services that are choking on P2P and YouTube, it's the driveways in private estates.
If your private estate's driveway can't handle the flotilla of heavy vehicles bringing HD video to your home, is it the responsibility of the HD video provider, the trucking company, or the private estate to upgrade the driveways to handle the traffic? Remember, the road leading to the estate was big enough already - the choke point is the private estate's single lane driveways.
However, all of my goods are delivered to me by a guy on a 125cc motorbike. Why should I pay for driveway upgrades when the existing driveway is already more than suitable for my needs?
This is not an infrastructure problem, it's a last-mile problem. It seem to me that the consumers are the ones who need to pony up the cash to upgrade their network connections in order to support their high-bandwidth consumption patterns. In most cases, they can keep using the existing last-mile and it will be 1 upgrade per ISP for their upstream connection. Nothing else needs to change except the upstream provider adding an extra 0 on the end of a couple of numbers (the bandwidth allocated to the ISP, and the related number on the bill)
Then again, the bank accepts the connection for normal purposes when it obviously comes from a non-trustworthy platform.
If I was a merchant and knowingly accepted counterfeit notes as part of a transaction, I cannot claim I was defrauded. In fact, I become party to the counterfeit.
If you want an MMO where the subscription fees are actually used to continually update the content, where you don't have to pay more money for expansion packs which have been financed by your subscription, try EVE Online.
Broadcasting the location of law enforcement will not stop crimes happening. Certainly, you'll stop crimes happening there, but the common case is that the person wishing to break the law (speeding, drag racing, burnouts, purse snatching, mugging) will find somewhere else to do it.
The patent isn't quite what you describe - it's mainly about a content aggregation service (the "portal") that tracks media distribution servers run elsewhere, and maps the media being distributed to users who have permission to use it.
I don't see anything novel in the patent - what interesting solution has it provided to what problem?
Flash is for more than just ads and video! You can also use t for time-wasting web site "intro pages", and stupid web site animation that could have been done better with CSS & ECMAScript (or better yet, left out entirely)?
Personally, I'd be much happier with a Flash-free world-wide web.
Slashdot Mirror
It could also be the case that the machines are altering the vote - either because the software has been fiddled, or the design is (intentionally or otherwise) not suitable for the purpose.
Parallax error? What year vintage are these touch screens? How badly designed is the interface if a half-centimetre error in finger position results in a different box being ticked? How many hotspots does the screen have? How many candidates are represented in that space?
I've seen "touch" screens in the past which had arrays of LEDs and optical detectors arranged around the edge of the screen - is it possible that there are (for example) 8 x 10 hot spots on the screen, with several locations where a hotspot is between candidate buttons? Don't blame the user for poorly designed computer interfaces.
Now run the same tests where the driver is talking to a passenger. There will be some nasty surprises there.
Did you just link to a site where the first paragraph refutes your statement? It says right there - "... claims that it is more dangerous than drink-driving are wrong and will not help to educate motorists about the dangers of inattentive driving." Besides, the issue is with trying to manipulate the controls of any device other than the car. Hands-free phones mean you're only as distracted as if you were talking to someone.
Are you going to suggest banning drivers from talking to their passengers?
Chakotay's story about the scorpion and the fox crossing the river springs to mind. Though it's probably based on the Turtle and the Scorpion.
On my Mac, when I get tired of reading black-on-white, I just hit Ctrl+Option+Command+8 Also helps for reading gaming web sites at work :)
How is switching to contract pricing a sign of "cracking down on iPhone unlockers" when it's more easily explained as "switching to a pricing model more likely to sell phones"?
How will this make it harder to jailbreak iPhones?
Is a mobile phone actually a separate product or service to the mobile phone network? I would have thought that "separate" in this instance would mean, "here, buy our fertilizer for $10/kg cheaper than the other guy, as long as you also buy electricity from DodgeyZap co. for 8c/kWh". Those are truly separate products and services.
With copy protection, it's just too easy for the publishers to rip off their customers. Look at the trivial case of upgrading a computer on which you've got music that is "protected" using any Microsoft DRM scheme. Since Microsoft will not support that DRM scheme next month, the act of upgrading your computer is equated to copyright infringement, and you can no longer access your music.
I've even been involved with one web site where their search engine was licensed software. It required routine renewals, otherwise it would stop working. One day the local support company closed shop, and it took the customer a month with no search box on their website to track down someone who would support the product and sell them a new key.
The best way to validate software is to simply trust the customer to act honourably, while you simultaneously do your best to act honourably towards the customer. Software that deactivates itself or cripples your computer is no better than vigilante justice - it always ends up hurting the innocent.
If you really truly believe that there should be no limits on traffic when you sign up with an ISP, stop whinging about it on Slashdot.
Take action! Set up your own ISP, and offer unmetered, unshaped, uncensored access to all!
Be sure to make a big noise about it on Slashdot so we can watch the circus.
TV is the opiate of the people.
So this couldn't be an attempt by a service provider to ensure that the cost of providing the service is weighted so that the people who use it more heavily end up paying more?
If you want unlimited broadband, try setting up your own ISP. When you find that the cost of 6Mbps upstream is more expensive than your current ADSL2+ plan, perhaps you'll start to understand how the business works.
For a small office, the simpler option is to have the updates downloaded from a mirror "out there" through a proxy server. Maintaining a mirror is a time-expensive task - I doubt the guy who does PC support on the side when he's not building web sites would appreciate having the extra time sink.
By the time you get to 20 workstations, you have a guy who is employed to maintain the computers - the time sink of maintaining a local mirror might make sense at that point. Then again, downloading updates through a proxy might still be the economical option - mostly due to restricting traffic to just the stuff you actually need to update your computers.
Why download 4GB of archives when the office computers don't need five different media players, fourteen window managers, twelve web browsers, and four different RDBMS?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this definition preclude being an insurgent anywhere else but their own backyard? So yes, you're strange. If you hadn't imposed a new civil authority, there wouldn't be insurgents.
An excellent piece of security theatre!
I think there's a subtle difference between having a few dozen nuclear missiles parked on Cuban soil versus having a country full of angry people cursing your name.
Of course, the policy of "fight them over there" is self fulfilling - by invading the country you're turning all those pissed-off people in to gun-wielding militias. Then you get to point at the gun-wielding militias and say, "See! I told you so!"
Well done!
You know your joke is a failure when you have to explain it to someone who didn't laugh.
You know you're a failure when you try explaining why someone else's joke isn't funny to the people who laughed.
There's at least one science fiction story I've read where aliens were influencing the breeding of certain human families to select for lucky genes. Doesn't winning the greencard lottery count as a similar genetic selection mechanism?
I was unemployed for an extended period due to a change of government - I live in Canberra, Australia, and at election time about 20% of the people employed or contracted to the public service stand to lose their jobs based on federal priorities.
For about six months I was on "new start" payments, while looking for a new programming job. Then one day I woke up and just decided to go apply for a light earth moving course - it turns out that retraining is part of the services available at subsidised rates through the "new start" programme, so I ended up with something constructive to do rather than applying for positions that I knew I'd never actually get.
Operating earthmoving equipment was fun while it lasted, but I never got a real job in the industry - everyone working here was from Sydney (300km away) and I didn't want to move to Sydney to get the job just so I could commute back to Canberra to do the work. I had a partner at the time, which complicated my decision.
Now I'm back in IT, thinking about moving into earthmoving again - with no partner to worry about, this time I'll be prepared to move for an interesting job.
Earthmoving is fun - the kind of fun you can have down the beach fun. Well, when you can work around the fact that you have to build exactly this sandcastle, not just the one that exists in your imagination :)
I guess another way of looking at the situation is this:
Comcast: Google, here's a bill for $20M for the traffic you sent over our network.
Google: Comcast, here's a bill $16B, a proportion of your net income based on the fact that our content formed 80% of your business.
Comcast: Damn, we need to buy better lobbyists.
How exactly do I go about passing the cost of my RedTube addiction on to my employer? Do I invoice them for it?
It's not the urban services that are choking on P2P and YouTube, it's the driveways in private estates.
If your private estate's driveway can't handle the flotilla of heavy vehicles bringing HD video to your home, is it the responsibility of the HD video provider, the trucking company, or the private estate to upgrade the driveways to handle the traffic? Remember, the road leading to the estate was big enough already - the choke point is the private estate's single lane driveways.
However, all of my goods are delivered to me by a guy on a 125cc motorbike. Why should I pay for driveway upgrades when the existing driveway is already more than suitable for my needs?
This is not an infrastructure problem, it's a last-mile problem. It seem to me that the consumers are the ones who need to pony up the cash to upgrade their network connections in order to support their high-bandwidth consumption patterns. In most cases, they can keep using the existing last-mile and it will be 1 upgrade per ISP for their upstream connection. Nothing else needs to change except the upstream provider adding an extra 0 on the end of a couple of numbers (the bandwidth allocated to the ISP, and the related number on the bill)
Then again, the bank accepts the connection for normal purposes when it obviously comes from a non-trustworthy platform.
If I was a merchant and knowingly accepted counterfeit notes as part of a transaction, I cannot claim I was defrauded. In fact, I become party to the counterfeit.
If you want an MMO where the subscription fees are actually used to continually update the content, where you don't have to pay more money for expansion packs which have been financed by your subscription, try EVE Online.
Broadcasting the location of law enforcement will not stop crimes happening. Certainly, you'll stop crimes happening there, but the common case is that the person wishing to break the law (speeding, drag racing, burnouts, purse snatching, mugging) will find somewhere else to do it.
The patent isn't quite what you describe - it's mainly about a content aggregation service (the "portal") that tracks media distribution servers run elsewhere, and maps the media being distributed to users who have permission to use it.
I don't see anything novel in the patent - what interesting solution has it provided to what problem?
Flash is for more than just ads and video! You can also use t for time-wasting web site "intro pages", and stupid web site animation that could have been done better with CSS & ECMAScript (or better yet, left out entirely)?
Personally, I'd be much happier with a Flash-free world-wide web.