So it's the same hand-cramp position as the original GB through the GB color, with added cramp factor because it's so thin. Not really a big deal, it's squared enough that it looks to be a piece of cake for someone to create an adult wrap-around grip.
Overall, I prefer this to the GBA since with the tilting screen I can sit more comfortably (hands down, head up). Hell, if I could have tilted the screen on my GBA I wouldn't have needed the afterburner mod about 1/2 the time.
There is a big difference between web display protocols (layer 7, which reside in the application layer and won't affect other applications) and transport protocols (layer 4, which affect every application that use the transport).
It's not clear to me from the text whether this has even been confirmed to be the reason behind IE's speed/slowness but if it is, it means that the client is not conforming to the TCP transport layer and could be detrimental to the server (and therefore all other clients trying to hit the server).
Bad HTML coding does not compare to that in rudeness.
I was in Nashville for a few years and there it was mostly Coke or fountain drink (but you're right, only when in an establishment with a fountain).
In Huntsville, AL it was hard to tell because so many people were not from there, but many of the natives used Coke or, yep, soft drink... knew I'd forget something. Though one of my best friends would always refer to it as "getting a Dew" even on the rare occasions when he meant something other than Mountain Dew.
You know, the parent poll is as close to a troll as I am willing to reply to:)
I've lived in enough areas in the US that I've been around most variations. It seems to break down like this:
West: soda or pop Midwest: pop East: soda or soda-pop NorEast: soda-pop South: Coke or "fountain drink" Deep South: Coke (even if it's clear or fruit colored)
I grew up with "pop", moved to where it was "coke", and then back to where it's "soda" or "pop". I generally call it soda or better yet, use a brand name, as soda seems to be understood everywhere. I definitely have had people not understand when I used "pop" before.
The point? Not much... except this is how culture develops... and telling someone they are wrong (worse, that only they are wrong and other variations are ok) is... well... a troll:)
However, your comment "I would rather the manufacturer pay for it than my local co-op recycler" is a bit naieve.
Not in the least. I know I am going to be the one paying in the end no matter who bears the costs.
The issue here is that my co-op recycler operates as a non-profit. They cover recycling costs with garbage [non-recyclable] fees ($2/can). I would rather the for-profit manufacturer deal with extra costs of bottling/canning than trickling it down to the local level.
In fact, I'm purposefully paying -more- this way than if my recycler bore the brunt of the additional recycling cost (at least in the short term) since I pay nothing to drop off the recyclables.
I'm willing to pay the little bit extra in the way of an aluminum fee to make sure I contribute that little bit less to the cost of recycling, thereby making recycling a more economical alternative and thereby making it more common.
I was about to post the same issue... with my recycler, I have to separate plastics and aluminum before taking them to the drop off.
Anyone know which is more environmentally sound to recycle: plastic or aluminum? I would have guessed the aluminum requires less energy and releases fewer gasses than plastic, but I'm not sure.
If it's a matter of making the can cheaper to manufacture but more expensive to recycle, sorry, but I would rather the manufacturer pay for it than my local co-op recycler.
If there is no downside to the recycling (and separation is still an issue) then it's a neat concept, but I just feel like aluminum is the more ecologically sound method right now. I would love to be proved wrong.
How feasible would it be for a professor to setup electronic countermeasures?
The solution would have to truly block, not just send out scatter, since the students probably already know the identity of the AP and sending out fake AP broadcasts wouldn't stop them at that point.
I could forsee some being willing to fork out $100-$200 to create something that would block 802.11* over a small area (say, a class room). Can you do that and if so is it legal (FCC)?
If so, would you be able to limit the range appropriately so you aren't blacking out the entire campus, but instead just an area around your class (probably much harder and dependent on how sensitive the devices your students are carrying, so some might be able to defeat it but that could be better than accidentally knocking out the computer lab's connection in the next building)?
If not, is it possible to configure an AP to talk on all channels at once? If so, that might do the trick. It would be more expensive but also possible to simply buy enough APs to cover each channel.
I don't know the answer to any of these, but I use 802.11* and could see it coming up as more things like this happen. For instance, a business could want to make sure their employees aren't "accidentally" connecting machines to a neighboring business' 802.11* network, or a provider might want to make sure that it's customers are using the proper network and try to fend off competitors from hijacking.
I have a first gen Tivo with a cheap second hard drive. The only time I've ever heard any mechanical noise from it is when the entire house was empty and nothing was running. It's quieter than my amplifier most times. If I stick my head to the back of the Tivo I can hear the drives and fan, but that's the only time.
My VCR on the other hand makes a pretty massive amount of sound on fast forwarding, rewinding, and when dis/engaging the heads. Hands down it's the noisiest appliance we own.
This guy either got a model with a total clunker of a drive or he's nuts.
It's obvious you're judging the attitude of the every day US citizen by the bogus crap that has been put into law here lately.
I for one can not think of a single non-politician that I have met who has supported the Patriot Act or it's relatives. Most people are neutral pending seeing it's results and more than a few are actively against it.
It will take awhile, the voting public still seems to be in shell shock, but when enough people become active again the Patriot Act will be fixed/removed. I wouldn't be surprised to see it essentially nullified within 5-10 years, and probably the same with the DMCA. I wish it would take less time, but that's the way things work. The population mass has reached a point where turn-on-a-dime democracy is very hard to do.
As for you ignoring people's opinions based on the laws that their government enacts, well, that seems rather ignorant.
In that type of instance, sure, I would expect to just tell you what it was... hell, I would expect to have written it down before I left and possibly filed a bug report with whatever manufacturer/distributor was at fault....
How about a counter example: To get your web site up and running, I have to write new code that gets it to work on your specific set of service that your software didn't originally support (like, say, running WebGUI on Apache 2).
Would I be expected to give you the rights to that script to use in the future in your work environment? Maybe, depends on if you paid for the time to document and package the script (and no, not everyone does want to pay for that and if they don't, most professional services houses will not give you additional rights beyond the initial install).
Would I be expected to sit by while you package up the code and deliver it to the world, possibly undercutting my business? Doubtful. Sure, I may be the kind sort who does so freely, but I may not. That is -my- decision, not yours. The only way the customer has the right to give away my work like that is to stipulate that ahead of time or if I'm too stupid to stipulate against it at the time of contract....
As for one of the earlier posters who stated that if I used this as a business model I would be out panhandling, I would say you don't have a clue how professional services contractors (big, like Sun/IBM, or small like an individual) do business. This is their bread and butter. In the case of the "fix a computer, tell them how to do it", you're right, but in the "integrate software not specifically compatible with each other" you're way off....
And I agree with Bruce Perens that the group that gives away the documentation for free and provides community support should get the money for providing support. Problem is... how often does that really happen?
Except that you paid them for that service. If I'm a contractor and someone pays me to come in and install/troubleshoot/fix software and/or document for them how to do it again, I am certainly going to expect that they will not then release all of my work publicly (and I'll write the contract to that effect).
The only difference here is that:
* The support provider is the -author-, so they definitely know their stuff (not always a given).
* The package doesn't get free support from the author beyond bug fixes (which if you look at the number of open source packages out there, is definitely not a unique condition)....
It's an Open Source package... your version of open source spirit/ethics/morals is different than everyone elses. This person's version is more capitalist, yours is more socialist. Neither is right or wrong.
If it's covered by one of the standard Open licenses (the site was/.ed so I couldn't check) then nothing is stopping everyone else from grabbing it and starting a separate free support site. Hell, depending on the license you can fork it off and start fixing things, too.
I'm not saying I like the methodology, but hey, if everyone dislikes it who is using it, it won't be hard to start a new support forum or develop something else to replace it.
Any idea why monitors with DVI support are more (it's digital, so in theory, it should cost less, because there's no need for a analog to digital conversion)?
2 reasons:
1) Market dynamics. They sell far more VGA analog models (since there are so many people with VGA and so few with DVI) and so the economics make it much less expensive to manufacture and market those models. If they sold more DVI monitors, they would be cheaper (like the current trends for HDTVs).
2) Most people with DVI outputs are gamer and/or designer types who have spent alot more on video cards than the average user (who often spends nothing to get a VGA output since most motherboards have built-in video). They feel that if you're willing to pay for a DVI capable 3D accelerator, you would be willing to pay more to hook it up.
Re:I was hoping they would wait.
on
New Red Hat Beta
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Go for it.
This is my opinion regarding everyone who posts responses like this when they don't like something that one of the other distributions has done...
If you have both the time and experience to run Gentoo or create your own distribution, then you're not the type of person who Red Hat is targetting.
If you have the knowledge to install your own updated KDE 3.1 then you're also probably not the customer that Red Hat is looking for.
I find it refreshing that Red Hat has not only recognized that most people with that skillset aren't their core customers (honestly, what percentage of the Linux "elite" pay for Red Hat?) AND that they have the balls to do what is right for their customers. It means they have a model that is starting to work, which is good for all of the Linux community.
He works tech and doesn't live in Denver, Austin, Boston, or any other city that tried to become "the next silicon valley/tech corridor" and failed (and, upon failing, watched all the people from the valley stay in the valley). It's unfortunate that entire metros are now tech slums because of the local government jumping all on the same bandwagon a couple of years ago.
The Ender's series is always a good recommendation here... and 2 new books have recently been released in it (I haven't caught them yet, but have never been disappointed by Card's writing).
The Hyperion series by Dan Simmons, especially the first book (but all were very good) is one of my favorites.
If you're looking for slightly older (2-5 years) stuff, the "Gap" series by Donaldson was enjoyable and still pretty recent.
Not a whole lot from them lately, but the collaborations by Niven and Pournelle are still at the top of my list. Individual books by each have been very good, too.
That's around 20 books or so. Some old, some new. I haven't been scouting the aisles much for new books this year since I've got a backlog but I haven't been disappointed for quite some time.
One nice source to get new book recommendations from is to read the anthologies that come out from time to time (like Niven's N-Space). The value in these is not the reprinting of old stories, but the comments before each passage where you find out what the author's influences were. Then go look for books by those people.
So... What did you get from your Company for Christmas?
I got 5 days paid holiday vacation (7 if you count Xmas and New Years).
Since I work from remote, I don't get to go to any of the parties... but honestly... so what? If you don't want to pay parking, you should check to see if they're comp'ing it or just don't go.
Since I don't celebrate Xmas, it seems like a decent enough deal to me. A bonus would be nice, but if the company isn't paying any of our incentive bonuses (or at least not much of them) due to the economy, I'm not expecting it. I've 10x the amount in incentive bonuses than I would ever expect in my greediest holiday bonus dreams.
My wife's company had an Xmas party where they paid for 1 free drink, had lots of great munchies and gave us all a chance to view the Denver aquarium ("Ocean View") without a bunch of other people around. It was nice, sure, but given a choice of that or having the week off (which she doesn't get, making travel for the season unlikely), I'll -definitely- take the bonus I got.
I can go to the bookstore and pick out dozens if not hundreds of books that are terrific SciFi. I know to skip the star trek and other pulps.
There have been maybe a half-dozen truly good SciFi movies released. I'm not saying that Aliens or Star Wars aren't good -movies-, but they're not good SciFi. And all of the good SciFi movies were much better SciFi books or short stories.
Percentage-wise, I think the signal to noise ratio is better with books. There may be many more crappy books than movies, but there are also many (many) more good books.
Plus, for $7.50US I get to keep the book and not have my shoes stuck to the floor.
You, sir, obviously don't work for a computer manufacturer, or you'd know what it was like to get stuck with the weirdest not-meant-for-daily-use-but-looks-cool desktop system.
If the boss really is knowledgeable, it's not necessarily a contradiction. He could be that "one in a million" truly good manager who really does understand pthreads and currently rejects them on their merits, but to help his employee save face is allowing the employee a chance to change his viewpoint without forcing it into an argument, thereby also finding out for sure if the employee really knows what he is talking about.
The Green Party may be a bit too liberal for most, but it's real problem is that the people who get -press- for the GP tend to be the fruitcakes. The "normal" or moderate GP candidates are usually ignored by the press.
Since they don't take major corporate funding, there is no easy way for a moderate GP candidate to get press. The Libertarian party suffers the exact same problem of the press only paying attention to marginalized extreme members of the party.
The only way I've seen around this so far are donation caps and mandated equal media coverage for all registered candidates. Not just "free press", some places have that to some extent, but "equal press". Very hard to mandate such a thing in a democracy/republic/etc.
Until we somehow have a constituency who will make up their minds based on issues on a per-candidate basis, we'll always have problems like this while we have parties. Participate in each election and read up on your candidates and their issues beforehand (for instance, I voted Libertarian on a couple of ballots where I thought I would vote Democrat because I couldn't find the publicly posted opinions of the Democratic candidate anywhere and I don't consider N/A a valid opinion).
Which is going to be easier: do away with parties or get an educated and ACTIVE constituency? That's a toughie.
Slashdot Mirror
out of mod points, consider this a +1 vote for the parent.
So it's the same hand-cramp position as the original GB through the GB color, with added cramp factor because it's so thin. Not really a big deal, it's squared enough that it looks to be a piece of cake for someone to create an adult wrap-around grip.
Overall, I prefer this to the GBA since with the tilting screen I can sit more comfortably (hands down, head up). Hell, if I could have tilted the screen on my GBA I wouldn't have needed the afterburner mod about 1/2 the time.
Ever hear of the OSI networking model?
There is a big difference between web display protocols (layer 7, which reside in the application layer and won't affect other applications) and transport protocols (layer 4, which affect every application that use the transport).
It's not clear to me from the text whether this has even been confirmed to be the reason behind IE's speed/slowness but if it is, it means that the client is not conforming to the TCP transport layer and could be detrimental to the server (and therefore all other clients trying to hit the server).
Bad HTML coding does not compare to that in rudeness.
I was in Nashville for a few years and there it was mostly Coke or fountain drink (but you're right, only when in an establishment with a fountain).
... knew I'd forget something. Though one of my best friends would always refer to it as "getting a Dew" even on the rare occasions when he meant something other than Mountain Dew.
In Huntsville, AL it was hard to tell because so many people were not from there, but many of the natives used Coke or, yep, soft drink
You know, the parent poll is as close to a troll as I am willing to reply to :)
... except this is how culture develops ... and telling someone they are wrong (worse, that only they are wrong and other variations are ok) is ... well ... a troll :)
I've lived in enough areas in the US that I've been around most variations. It seems to break down like this:
West: soda or pop
Midwest: pop
East: soda or soda-pop
NorEast: soda-pop
South: Coke or "fountain drink"
Deep South: Coke (even if it's clear or fruit colored)
I grew up with "pop", moved to where it was "coke", and then back to where it's "soda" or "pop". I generally call it soda or better yet, use a brand name, as soda seems to be understood everywhere. I definitely have had people not understand when I used "pop" before.
The point? Not much
Not in the least. I know I am going to be the one paying in the end no matter who bears the costs.
The issue here is that my co-op recycler operates as a non-profit. They cover recycling costs with garbage [non-recyclable] fees ($2/can). I would rather the for-profit manufacturer deal with extra costs of bottling/canning than trickling it down to the local level.
In fact, I'm purposefully paying -more- this way than if my recycler bore the brunt of the additional recycling cost (at least in the short term) since I pay nothing to drop off the recyclables.
I'm willing to pay the little bit extra in the way of an aluminum fee to make sure I contribute that little bit less to the cost of recycling, thereby making recycling a more economical alternative and thereby making it more common.
I was about to post the same issue ... with my recycler, I have to separate plastics and aluminum before taking them to the drop off.
Anyone know which is more environmentally sound to recycle: plastic or aluminum? I would have guessed the aluminum requires less energy and releases fewer gasses than plastic, but I'm not sure.
If it's a matter of making the can cheaper to manufacture but more expensive to recycle, sorry, but I would rather the manufacturer pay for it than my local co-op recycler.
If there is no downside to the recycling (and separation is still an issue) then it's a neat concept, but I just feel like aluminum is the more ecologically sound method right now. I would love to be proved wrong.
How feasible would it be for a professor to setup electronic countermeasures?
The solution would have to truly block, not just send out scatter, since the students probably already know the identity of the AP and sending out fake AP broadcasts wouldn't stop them at that point.
I could forsee some being willing to fork out $100-$200 to create something that would block 802.11* over a small area (say, a class room). Can you do that and if so is it legal (FCC)?
If so, would you be able to limit the range appropriately so you aren't blacking out the entire campus, but instead just an area around your class (probably much harder and dependent on how sensitive the devices your students are carrying, so some might be able to defeat it but that could be better than accidentally knocking out the computer lab's connection in the next building)?
If not, is it possible to configure an AP to talk on all channels at once? If so, that might do the trick. It would be more expensive but also possible to simply buy enough APs to cover each channel.
I don't know the answer to any of these, but I use 802.11* and could see it coming up as more things like this happen. For instance, a business could want to make sure their employees aren't "accidentally" connecting machines to a neighboring business' 802.11* network, or a provider might want to make sure that it's customers are using the proper network and try to fend off competitors from hijacking.
I have a first gen Tivo with a cheap second hard drive. The only time I've ever heard any mechanical noise from it is when the entire house was empty and nothing was running. It's quieter than my amplifier most times. If I stick my head to the back of the Tivo I can hear the drives and fan, but that's the only time.
My VCR on the other hand makes a pretty massive amount of sound on fast forwarding, rewinding, and when dis/engaging the heads. Hands down it's the noisiest appliance we own.
This guy either got a model with a total clunker of a drive or he's nuts.
It's obvious you're judging the attitude of the every day US citizen by the bogus crap that has been put into law here lately.
I for one can not think of a single non-politician that I have met who has supported the Patriot Act or it's relatives. Most people are neutral pending seeing it's results and more than a few are actively against it.
It will take awhile, the voting public still seems to be in shell shock, but when enough people become active again the Patriot Act will be fixed/removed. I wouldn't be surprised to see it essentially nullified within 5-10 years, and probably the same with the DMCA. I wish it would take less time, but that's the way things work. The population mass has reached a point where turn-on-a-dime democracy is very hard to do.
As for you ignoring people's opinions based on the laws that their government enacts, well, that seems rather ignorant.
In that type of instance, sure, I would expect to just tell you what it was ... hell, I would expect to have written it down before I left and possibly filed a bug report with whatever manufacturer/distributor was at fault. ...
...
...
... how often does that really happen?
How about a counter example: To get your web site up and running, I have to write new code that gets it to work on your specific set of service that your software didn't originally support (like, say, running WebGUI on Apache 2).
Would I be expected to give you the rights to that script to use in the future in your work environment? Maybe, depends on if you paid for the time to document and package the script (and no, not everyone does want to pay for that and if they don't, most professional services houses will not give you additional rights beyond the initial install).
Would I be expected to sit by while you package up the code and deliver it to the world, possibly undercutting my business? Doubtful. Sure, I may be the kind sort who does so freely, but I may not. That is -my- decision, not yours. The only way the customer has the right to give away my work like that is to stipulate that ahead of time or if I'm too stupid to stipulate against it at the time of contract.
As for one of the earlier posters who stated that if I used this as a business model I would be out panhandling, I would say you don't have a clue how professional services contractors (big, like Sun/IBM, or small like an individual) do business. This is their bread and butter. In the case of the "fix a computer, tell them how to do it", you're right, but in the "integrate software not specifically compatible with each other" you're way off.
And I agree with Bruce Perens that the group that gives away the documentation for free and provides community support should get the money for providing support. Problem is
Except that you paid them for that service. If I'm a contractor and someone pays me to come in and install/troubleshoot/fix software and/or document for them how to do it again, I am certainly going to expect that they will not then release all of my work publicly (and I'll write the contract to that effect).
...
... your version of open source spirit/ethics/morals is different than everyone elses. This person's version is more capitalist, yours is more socialist. Neither is right or wrong.
/.ed so I couldn't check) then nothing is stopping everyone else from grabbing it and starting a separate free support site. Hell, depending on the license you can fork it off and start fixing things, too.
The only difference here is that:
* The support provider is the -author-, so they definitely know their stuff (not always a given).
* The package doesn't get free support from the author beyond bug fixes (which if you look at the number of open source packages out there, is definitely not a unique condition).
It's an Open Source package
If it's covered by one of the standard Open licenses (the site was
I'm not saying I like the methodology, but hey, if everyone dislikes it who is using it, it won't be hard to start a new support forum or develop something else to replace it.
-that's- Open Source spirit (to me).
Yes, we got it.
No, just fairly obscure :)
2 reasons:
1) Market dynamics. They sell far more VGA analog models (since there are so many people with VGA and so few with DVI) and so the economics make it much less expensive to manufacture and market those models. If they sold more DVI monitors, they would be cheaper (like the current trends for HDTVs).
2) Most people with DVI outputs are gamer and/or designer types who have spent alot more on video cards than the average user (who often spends nothing to get a VGA output since most motherboards have built-in video). They feel that if you're willing to pay for a DVI capable 3D accelerator, you would be willing to pay more to hook it up.
Go for it.
...
This is my opinion regarding everyone who posts responses like this when they don't like something that one of the other distributions has done
If you have both the time and experience to run Gentoo or create your own distribution, then you're not the type of person who Red Hat is targetting.
If you have the knowledge to install your own updated KDE 3.1 then you're also probably not the customer that Red Hat is looking for.
I find it refreshing that Red Hat has not only recognized that most people with that skillset aren't their core customers (honestly, what percentage of the Linux "elite" pay for Red Hat?) AND that they have the balls to do what is right for their customers. It means they have a model that is starting to work, which is good for all of the Linux community.
Cool, I was looking for an excuse to have just -one- foe here on the dot. :) Nothing personal ...
He works tech and doesn't live in Denver, Austin, Boston, or any other city that tried to become "the next silicon valley/tech corridor" and failed (and, upon failing, watched all the people from the valley stay in the valley). It's unfortunate that entire metros are now tech slums because of the local government jumping all on the same bandwagon a couple of years ago.
What, and risk the brighter image causing burn-in?
The Ender's series is always a good recommendation here ... and 2 new books have recently been released in it (I haven't caught them yet, but have never been disappointed by Card's writing).
The Hyperion series by Dan Simmons, especially the first book (but all were very good) is one of my favorites.
If you're looking for slightly older (2-5 years) stuff, the "Gap" series by Donaldson was enjoyable and still pretty recent.
Not a whole lot from them lately, but the collaborations by Niven and Pournelle are still at the top of my list. Individual books by each have been very good, too.
That's around 20 books or so. Some old, some new. I haven't been scouting the aisles much for new books this year since I've got a backlog but I haven't been disappointed for quite some time.
One nice source to get new book recommendations from is to read the anthologies that come out from time to time (like Niven's N-Space). The value in these is not the reprinting of old stories, but the comments before each passage where you find out what the author's influences were. Then go look for books by those people.
I got 5 days paid holiday vacation (7 if you count Xmas and New Years).
Since I work from remote, I don't get to go to any of the parties
Since I don't celebrate Xmas, it seems like a decent enough deal to me. A bonus would be nice, but if the company isn't paying any of our incentive bonuses (or at least not much of them) due to the economy, I'm not expecting it. I've 10x the amount in incentive bonuses than I would ever expect in my greediest holiday bonus dreams.
My wife's company had an Xmas party where they paid for 1 free drink, had lots of great munchies and gave us all a chance to view the Denver aquarium ("Ocean View") without a bunch of other people around. It was nice, sure, but given a choice of that or having the week off (which she doesn't get, making travel for the season unlikely), I'll -definitely- take the bonus I got.
I can go to the bookstore and pick out dozens if not hundreds of books that are terrific SciFi. I know to skip the star trek and other pulps.
There have been maybe a half-dozen truly good SciFi movies released. I'm not saying that Aliens or Star Wars aren't good -movies-, but they're not good SciFi. And all of the good SciFi movies were much better SciFi books or short stories.
Percentage-wise, I think the signal to noise ratio is better with books. There may be many more crappy books than movies, but there are also many (many) more good books.
Plus, for $7.50US I get to keep the book and not have my shoes stuck to the floor.
A book.
You, sir, obviously don't work for a computer manufacturer, or you'd know what it was like to get stuck with the weirdest not-meant-for-daily-use-but-looks-cool desktop system.
If the boss really is knowledgeable, it's not necessarily a contradiction. He could be that "one in a million" truly good manager who really does understand pthreads and currently rejects them on their merits, but to help his employee save face is allowing the employee a chance to change his viewpoint without forcing it into an argument, thereby also finding out for sure if the employee really knows what he is talking about.
Nah.
The Green Party may be a bit too liberal for most, but it's real problem is that the people who get -press- for the GP tend to be the fruitcakes. The "normal" or moderate GP candidates are usually ignored by the press.
Since they don't take major corporate funding, there is no easy way for a moderate GP candidate to get press. The Libertarian party suffers the exact same problem of the press only paying attention to marginalized extreme members of the party.
The only way I've seen around this so far are donation caps and mandated equal media coverage for all registered candidates. Not just "free press", some places have that to some extent, but "equal press". Very hard to mandate such a thing in a democracy/republic/etc.
Until we somehow have a constituency who will make up their minds based on issues on a per-candidate basis, we'll always have problems like this while we have parties. Participate in each election and read up on your candidates and their issues beforehand (for instance, I voted Libertarian on a couple of ballots where I thought I would vote Democrat because I couldn't find the publicly posted opinions of the Democratic candidate anywhere and I don't consider N/A a valid opinion).
Which is going to be easier: do away with parties or get an educated and ACTIVE constituency? That's a toughie.