Well, normalizing to the wisdom of decisions made recently, it's wise. It's also, in my opinion, unexpected, hence extraordinary.
While you may think it takes no more than the ability to read to figure out whether or not a multi-hundred-page law is constitutional, lawyers may disagree.
The blind either receive assistance with casting their vote using traditional ballots from a person (a volunteer, one or two inspectors, etc.), or they recieve "assistance", along with everyone else, from Diebold in casting their vote.
If you're blind, you probably can't use a touchscreen electronic voting machine or a punch-card ballot either. I think people with such disabilities are entitled to either (a) help in the voting booth or (b) absentee ballots.
That's the beauty of the blank square next to the name system, though. Even people who are easily confused can check a box next to a name with very high accuracy. Much better than the nonsense that was the Florida ballot. (You know, there are easily confused people in 49 other states that are getting off easy because of Florida.)
Optical scanners can be rigged, sure, but so can just about anything else. At some point there has to be some level of trust in reviewed systems.
Optical scanners have the secondary benefit that if you don't believe their results, you can fall back on the much slower and possibly less accurate human-powered counting machines.
I was actually thinking the same thing but in reverse. Go to an electronic booth and select your choices, review your choices, and have it print out a human-readable and presumably machine-readable sheet with your choices marked on it for you to review. If all is okay, the computer records your vote and you drop the sheet in the box. Makes it easier to recount by machine that way, I guess.
You skipped over the fact that in the time of party-printed ballots you could apparently also just get a pencil and paper.
Actually, I really don't see anything wrong with the old system. It used to be that the only requirement to get on a ballot was to share in the cost of printing the ballots, which seems reasonably fair.
Apparently in the US, write-in candidates are not counted unless requested by legal means (petition or court, I forget).
IIRC, the Constitution itself has no provisions that support a two-party system. A lot of that is just how the politics developed and is now enforced by ballot-access laws.
Looking up when ballot-access laws began is an exercise left to the reader.
Of course there's a right answer. And they have a criterion that makes your answer wrong and theirs right, they just didn't tell you what it is. Just because they don't tell you doesn't eliminate the criterion.
You don't even need polynomial fitting to come up with an answer by your logic. Just pick any arbitrary number, and it must be right, because you didn't specify a criterion that says it isn't! Yes, yes, that makes perfect sense... I'm sure many people will agree with you.
Also, the expansion for factorial contains an infinite number of polynomial terms and e^x, which is also expressable as a sum of an infinite number of polynomial terms. Whether or not that counts as a polynomial is up to you. But factorial cannot be fit exactly by any finite number of polynomial terms (an most regression software prefers not to fit above 10th order).
In case anyone's clever and cares, I might as well mention that my example isn't particularly good, since factorial is still a function (well, gamma is a function; same thing) and so it has some polynomial representation, albeit without a finite number of terms. Arbitrary polynomial fitting still isn't going to get you the right answer. The Google problem is better because it's not a mathmatical function, so there's no way to properly justify fitting to it and extracting some answer.
This statement doesn't change anything. Correct and right mean the same thing. The problem is that just because some answer is justifiable doesn't mean it's correct... or right.
Take the example given in the Google problem, of figuring out what comes next in a sequence of numbers. Say the sequence is 1, 2, 6, 24, 120. If you think about it, you can figure out the next number in the sequence. But polynomial fits aren't going to get you the solution. If I fit it to, say, a 4th order polynomial and determine that the next item is 410, that doesn't make me right.
You see it a lot in physics classes (which I've taught). People will come up with the most incorrect answers possible to a question by applying an invalid method. Then they'll say, "But F=ma, right? That's what I used." Then you say, "Yes, but that equation has nothing to do with the problem at hand, so using it can't possibly get you the right answer except by luck." Then they cry.
True, but in the time it takes one good candidate to complete the problem and post solutions online, another good candidate may not have even seen the problem.
Granted, if you only want a couple of applications, then you can ignore this factor -- as well as ignoring all but the first few responses.
The funny thing is, and I'm probably repeating something already mentioned, you can just get the solutions by using Google to search for the answers. It's quite easy. Funny, too, since the path of least resistance is to just use their tool and look up the answers.
Incidentally, most of the answers I've seen just involve some classic cleverness and, again, searching on Google for components and stitching them together into a simple program.
If Google wants to hire me because I'm lazy enough to use Google to find the answer to anything, so be it.
I take it this is why companies like IBM have their some of their research software run as a distributed program that eats up the processor cycles of all of their non-research PCs?
While it's true that sending valuable company data across the Internet is a problem, not all problems are going to require that. Also, while not every problem lends itself to distributed computing, a program that properly implements a problem that does lend itself to distribution won't require large amounts of bandwidth.
You know, you could simply check that statement against current distributed problems. For example, neither Seti@home nor the distributed.net client have large bandwidth demands but a high computational demands.
Face it, if Pixar had to pass around that much data to render individual frames, its own network would get overflowed.
I will have you know, though, that processor cycles are far from free. Building a good supercomputer that can do the work of a distributed system is very expensive no matter what route you take. (The purchase, infrastructure, development, and administraton of even a few hundred machines is pricy. Ask Clemson's PARL.)
My take on it: if banners are those irritating flashing ad banners or "hit the monkey" or nonsense like that, I'll filter them. If they're text, I'll either ignore them or *maybe* click on them.
If I had to pay less than a few bucks a month to read Slashdot without evil banners (as opposed to non-evil banners, which exist), I'd do it.
So wait. When Mitnick hacks into a whole host of companies and networks and finally gets caught, you're up in arms because he got a harsh sentence, and now you whine because this guy got a light sentence for some DoS attacks.
Sure, it's unethical, but wouldn't it be great for Microsoft to release their updates as viruses that exploit the very security hole that the patch fixes? I bet it would get a lot better coverage than relying on system administrators to apply the patch themselves.
Make sure that they're not checking your browser version. Some banks (e.g. Bank of America) require a narrow range of browsers and haven't updated it to include the Netscape 6 / Mozilla family. Now, I like having them deny connections to people with browsers that don't support strong enough security, but I think Mozilla ought to be on that list.
Though I admittedly don't know much about this technology, flourescents emit EMR primarily at 60 Hz, the power cycle frequency, right? That's a far cry from the MHz range that CRTs use.
Additionally, you can often use filtering and directional recievers to clear up the signal.
I'm surprised this guy managed to only get one e-mail a day, on average (at the worst). Of course, I use a hotmail address to throw at places that I know will send me mail.
The overall outcome of the article? Don't give your e-mail address to advertisers. As if that shouldn't be obvious.
More not-so-exciting adventures in the land of correlation vs. causation. Yeah.
We also get laid more, but has anyone done a study on that?
It's not like you're in a real class of your own if you just play video games these days anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, normalizing to the wisdom of decisions made recently, it's wise. It's also, in my opinion, unexpected, hence extraordinary.
While you may think it takes no more than the ability to read to figure out whether or not a multi-hundred-page law is constitutional, lawyers may disagree.
I'd be willing to be that this one will see the Supreme Court. Hopefully they'll not overturn this extrordinarily wise decision.
I moderate Mr. Marreo +1 : Liberty.
The blind either receive assistance with casting their vote using traditional ballots from a person (a volunteer, one or two inspectors, etc.), or they recieve "assistance", along with everyone else, from Diebold in casting their vote.
If you're blind, you probably can't use a touchscreen electronic voting machine or a punch-card ballot either. I think people with such disabilities are entitled to either (a) help in the voting booth or (b) absentee ballots.
That's the beauty of the blank square next to the name system, though. Even people who are easily confused can check a box next to a name with very high accuracy. Much better than the nonsense that was the Florida ballot. (You know, there are easily confused people in 49 other states that are getting off easy because of Florida.)
Optical scanners can be rigged, sure, but so can just about anything else. At some point there has to be some level of trust in reviewed systems.
Optical scanners have the secondary benefit that if you don't believe their results, you can fall back on the much slower and possibly less accurate human-powered counting machines.
I was actually thinking the same thing but in reverse. Go to an electronic booth and select your choices, review your choices, and have it print out a human-readable and presumably machine-readable sheet with your choices marked on it for you to review. If all is okay, the computer records your vote and you drop the sheet in the box. Makes it easier to recount by machine that way, I guess.
Ah, for the days of taking a pen and a sheet of paper with boxes next to names, and marking an X in the box next to the person you want to vote for.
Simple and relatively free from error. I'm sure optical scanners today should be able to process these damned quick, too.
Hopefully New York is not going to be using paperless electronic voting machines. I don't trust them.
You skipped over the fact that in the time of party-printed ballots you could apparently also just get a pencil and paper.
Actually, I really don't see anything wrong with the old system. It used to be that the only requirement to get on a ballot was to share in the cost of printing the ballots, which seems reasonably fair.
Apparently in the US, write-in candidates are not counted unless requested by legal means (petition or court, I forget).
Only if by "forever" you mean 1828.
IIRC, the Constitution itself has no provisions that support a two-party system. A lot of that is just how the politics developed and is now enforced by ballot-access laws.
Looking up when ballot-access laws began is an exercise left to the reader.
Of course there's a right answer. And they have a criterion that makes your answer wrong and theirs right, they just didn't tell you what it is. Just because they don't tell you doesn't eliminate the criterion.
You don't even need polynomial fitting to come up with an answer by your logic. Just pick any arbitrary number, and it must be right, because you didn't specify a criterion that says it isn't! Yes, yes, that makes perfect sense... I'm sure many people will agree with you.
Also, the expansion for factorial contains an infinite number of polynomial terms and e^x, which is also expressable as a sum of an infinite number of polynomial terms. Whether or not that counts as a polynomial is up to you. But factorial cannot be fit exactly by any finite number of polynomial terms (an most regression software prefers not to fit above 10th order).
In case anyone's clever and cares, I might as well mention that my example isn't particularly good, since factorial is still a function (well, gamma is a function; same thing) and so it has some polynomial representation, albeit without a finite number of terms. Arbitrary polynomial fitting still isn't going to get you the right answer. The Google problem is better because it's not a mathmatical function, so there's no way to properly justify fitting to it and extracting some answer.
This statement doesn't change anything. Correct and right mean the same thing. The problem is that just because some answer is justifiable doesn't mean it's correct... or right.
Take the example given in the Google problem, of figuring out what comes next in a sequence of numbers. Say the sequence is 1, 2, 6, 24, 120. If you think about it, you can figure out the next number in the sequence. But polynomial fits aren't going to get you the solution. If I fit it to, say, a 4th order polynomial and determine that the next item is 410, that doesn't make me right.
You see it a lot in physics classes (which I've taught). People will come up with the most incorrect answers possible to a question by applying an invalid method. Then they'll say, "But F=ma, right? That's what I used." Then you say, "Yes, but that equation has nothing to do with the problem at hand, so using it can't possibly get you the right answer except by luck." Then they cry.
True, but in the time it takes one good candidate to complete the problem and post solutions online, another good candidate may not have even seen the problem.
Granted, if you only want a couple of applications, then you can ignore this factor -- as well as ignoring all but the first few responses.
You must be an engineer.
Just because you can use some method to come up with some answer doesn't magically make it the right one.
The funny thing is, and I'm probably repeating something already mentioned, you can just get the solutions by using Google to search for the answers. It's quite easy. Funny, too, since the path of least resistance is to just use their tool and look up the answers.
Incidentally, most of the answers I've seen just involve some classic cleverness and, again, searching on Google for components and stitching them together into a simple program.
If Google wants to hire me because I'm lazy enough to use Google to find the answer to anything, so be it.
None. You can't tap mana, you can only tap lands (or use other effects, some of which may require tapping) in order to put mana in your mana pool.
Television set controls the MPAA!
Wait, that would be a good thing.
You mean like their subsidiary, Con Edison Communications, which already leases T1 and T3? Yeah, that's a non-telecom firm.
Of course, everyone's in the telecom business these days.
I take it this is why companies like IBM have their some of their research software run as a distributed program that eats up the processor cycles of all of their non-research PCs?
While it's true that sending valuable company data across the Internet is a problem, not all problems are going to require that. Also, while not every problem lends itself to distributed computing, a program that properly implements a problem that does lend itself to distribution won't require large amounts of bandwidth.
You know, you could simply check that statement against current distributed problems. For example, neither Seti@home nor the distributed.net client have large bandwidth demands but a high computational demands.
Face it, if Pixar had to pass around that much data to render individual frames, its own network would get overflowed.
I will have you know, though, that processor cycles are far from free. Building a good supercomputer that can do the work of a distributed system is very expensive no matter what route you take. (The purchase, infrastructure, development, and administraton of even a few hundred machines is pricy. Ask Clemson's PARL.)
My take on it: if banners are those irritating flashing ad banners or "hit the monkey" or nonsense like that, I'll filter them. If they're text, I'll either ignore them or *maybe* click on them.
If I had to pay less than a few bucks a month to read Slashdot without evil banners (as opposed to non-evil banners, which exist), I'd do it.
So wait. When Mitnick hacks into a whole host of companies and networks and finally gets caught, you're up in arms because he got a harsh sentence, and now you whine because this guy got a light sentence for some DoS attacks.
What's the deal here?
Sure, it's unethical, but wouldn't it be great for Microsoft to release their updates as viruses that exploit the very security hole that the patch fixes? I bet it would get a lot better coverage than relying on system administrators to apply the patch themselves.
This is probably the bank's fault.
Make sure that they're not checking your browser version. Some banks (e.g. Bank of America) require a narrow range of browsers and haven't updated it to include the Netscape 6 / Mozilla family. Now, I like having them deny connections to people with browsers that don't support strong enough security, but I think Mozilla ought to be on that list.
Though I admittedly don't know much about this technology, flourescents emit EMR primarily at 60 Hz, the power cycle frequency, right? That's a far cry from the MHz range that CRTs use.
Additionally, you can often use filtering and directional recievers to clear up the signal.
I'm surprised this guy managed to only get one e-mail a day, on average (at the worst). Of course, I use a hotmail address to throw at places that I know will send me mail.
The overall outcome of the article? Don't give your e-mail address to advertisers. As if that shouldn't be obvious.
More not-so-exciting adventures in the land of correlation vs. causation. Yeah. We also get laid more, but has anyone done a study on that? It's not like you're in a real class of your own if you just play video games these days anyway.