I dunno. As an extension of your iPhone, it does fit in a niche. It's probably handy to use to see notifications, maybe some status updates, check in on real time data like weather, and to quickly check the current time like any other watch. It can probably serve as an always-connected fit bit or something like that.
But I agree that it is a solution looking for a problem. In the larger picture, I just don't see the form factor being conducive to a significant variety of applications. So it's useful to a subset of the population but not a must-have for most. And that will prevent it from being a runaway success. That is, until they can find a "killer app" that everyone wants to have. And I'm sure many people are working on ideas for that. Maybe someone will find that problem to solve. Maybe not. Even if they don't, I think enough people will find it useful enough to justify buying it and I think Apple will at least make their money back on the development costs.
The problem is that the people who you really want to get insight from are not the types who waste a lot of time blogging. At least not on a regular basis. As a result, the signal to noise ratio is so low there's no point in really following any of them.
In the original back story, Han was an imperial officer who couldn't stand to see a wookie (Chewie) being abused so he freed Chewie and deserted. So there is a core "good guy" in him from earlier in his life. In order to survive as a smuggler, he had to suppress all that.
I do agree that a "nice" Han Solo wouldn't play well in his prequel story, you can't completely cover up the core of who he is either. If they do it right, they can show him with a look of regret as he is driven to do the ruthless things he needs to do to survive. That way he can still be a badass but also a sympathetic hero at the same time.
According to the story they made up after the movie with the one line, the Kessel run is made through a cluster of black holes. While there are charted routes in and out, some smugglers chance taking a shorter route so they can shave time off the run. And Solo, being a hero in the story, is one of the smugglers who managed to safely find a shorter route. It's a not-entirely-clumsy way to sweep under the rug what amounts to a line of bad dialog.
I suspect that they'll toss out everything and write a new story. That way you don't have to compensate the authors of the books for their ideas. But that's just the cynic in me speaking.
I would be surprised, however, if they didn't at least cover Han meeting Chewie and them doing the Kessel Run (completely rewritten, of course). I wonder if, in his new story, he will have been an officer in the Imperial fleet when he rescued Chewie or if they're going to rewrite that too.
I hope it will be interesting to watch, regardless of what direction they go in.
Are they going to incorporate anything from the Brian Daily prequel books (Han Solo at Stars' End, Han Solo's Revenge, Han Solo and the Lost Legacy) and the like, or are they going to start with a clean slate and write a new history? While I enjoyed the books, either direction would be fine by me as I'm not a rabid purist. I just am interested in knowing what they plan to do with the story.
It will take a lot for cash to go away. While the underground economy is driving a lot of the cash use, the privacy advocates will surely fight to keep it as well.
"..Because the site's privacy policy had promised never to sell or share members' personal details without their permission,..."
Sounds like we could charge the corporate officers with 2 million counts of fraud at least.
If we actually set a strong precedent of punishing site owners for their cavalier disregard for the promises made, I suspect this wouldn't be something we'd have much worry about.
Who are you going to charge when the business has closed its doors and a bankruptcy court is discharging its assets to creditors?
Reason #43385634 why I try to minimize my exposure by refusing to give as much personal information as I can as often as I can. Paying in cash for day-to-day transactions helps out a lot too.
It makes all the difference. The fact that the electors are only bound by state is the only reason that the winner of the national popular vote can lose in the electoral college. That inequity is inherent in the way the states are allocated electoral votes. Some states have more electors representing fewer actual voters than others. So your single vote may count for more or less than someone in a different state.
Beyond that, the horrific gerrymandering of voting districts contributes greatly to predetermining the outcome, further diluting the value of an individual's vote. And let's not overlook the fact that some states (like TX and CA) are heavily slanted to one side or the other and there is very little chance for the state to actually choose the "other side". In those states, your vote is entirely meaningless.
The only legitimate way to make every vote count is to get rid of any system other than counting every single vote in the country and tallying up who the winner is.
According to every count that followed the rules of voting that were in place in Forida at the time.
I don't disagree that the ballots they used were terrible and the rules were bad. But you can't change the rules after the fact. Both sides agreed to use the ballots as they were designed before the election took place, knowing there were problems with the design. And they were counted according to the rules. There is nothing you can do to change the outcome that doesn't involve breaking the rules that were in place at the time. And counting ballots in violation of the rules may demonstrate how bad the rules were, but it can't change the rules. All you can do after the fact is show how the rules and ballot design are flawed and make changes going forward.
But given all that, even though there were bad rules and flawed ballots, there is no guarantee that a better system would have altered the outcome. The only thing that came from those illegitimate recounts was a deliberate obfuscation of the issue because every organization questioning the election after the fact had an agenda. Hell, the way you physically handle punch ballots while you're recounting them can change a chad from being dimpled to being partially removed or not. And partisan counters are good at handling ballots. Changing the rules and then doing a recount is not relevant for anything but proving how the rules needed to be (and have been) changed.
So yes, the rules were bad. The ballot was a flawed design. It's impossible to know for sure because of that what the true will of the people really was. But if you follow the laws and rules in place at the time of the election there is no question how the count came out. Fortunately, the rules changed dramatically and many of these problems went away moving forward. But there will always be a shrill fringe that would never be satisfied with anything short of a complete reversal regardless of the rule of law.
Could the election have been done better by having better balloting in place? No question.
Would it have changed the outcome? Hard to say.
Could a legitimate recount have changed the outcome? Not one that followed Florida election law.
The popular vote is irrelevant when it comes to the President. The electoral college decides who is President. Or didn't you learn that in civics class?
Besides, every single effort to recount the votes in Florida showed that Bush had an even larger margin of victory than at the time of the first count. This conclusively proved that he should have gotten Florida's electoral votes and therefore win the election. The Supreme Court didn't take anything from Gore and give it to Bush. He legitimately won the election according to the long established rules.
Now, the fact that we're still using the electoral college to decide who gets elected is something worth debating. While it had its place in the 18th and 19th century, the Electoral college has long outlived its usefulness. The entire concept of winner-take-all in most states means that only a few key states actually decide our election every time it comes around. And that means a vast majority of the votes people in this country cast are entirely meaningless. And that's something that needs to change. But until the rules change, that's how the system works whether you like it or not.
Slashdot Mirror
I predict we will only see the true end of Flash after we see COBOL finally retired...
I worked on systems for the Air Force using JOVIAL that dated back to the 1970s.
I dunno. As an extension of your iPhone, it does fit in a niche. It's probably handy to use to see notifications, maybe some status updates, check in on real time data like weather, and to quickly check the current time like any other watch. It can probably serve as an always-connected fit bit or something like that.
But I agree that it is a solution looking for a problem. In the larger picture, I just don't see the form factor being conducive to a significant variety of applications. So it's useful to a subset of the population but not a must-have for most. And that will prevent it from being a runaway success. That is, until they can find a "killer app" that everyone wants to have. And I'm sure many people are working on ideas for that. Maybe someone will find that problem to solve. Maybe not. Even if they don't, I think enough people will find it useful enough to justify buying it and I think Apple will at least make their money back on the development costs.
...than a dice "insights" spam.
The problem is that the people who you really want to get insight from are not the types who waste a lot of time blogging. At least not on a regular basis. As a result, the signal to noise ratio is so low there's no point in really following any of them.
In the original back story, Han was an imperial officer who couldn't stand to see a wookie (Chewie) being abused so he freed Chewie and deserted. So there is a core "good guy" in him from earlier in his life. In order to survive as a smuggler, he had to suppress all that.
I do agree that a "nice" Han Solo wouldn't play well in his prequel story, you can't completely cover up the core of who he is either. If they do it right, they can show him with a look of regret as he is driven to do the ruthless things he needs to do to survive. That way he can still be a badass but also a sympathetic hero at the same time.
According to the story they made up after the movie with the one line, the Kessel run is made through a cluster of black holes. While there are charted routes in and out, some smugglers chance taking a shorter route so they can shave time off the run. And Solo, being a hero in the story, is one of the smugglers who managed to safely find a shorter route. It's a not-entirely-clumsy way to sweep under the rug what amounts to a line of bad dialog.
I suspect that they'll toss out everything and write a new story. That way you don't have to compensate the authors of the books for their ideas. But that's just the cynic in me speaking.
I would be surprised, however, if they didn't at least cover Han meeting Chewie and them doing the Kessel Run (completely rewritten, of course). I wonder if, in his new story, he will have been an officer in the Imperial fleet when he rescued Chewie or if they're going to rewrite that too.
I hope it will be interesting to watch, regardless of what direction they go in.
Good point. The Kessel run absolutely needs to be there for it to feel "complete".
Are they going to incorporate anything from the Brian Daily prequel books (Han Solo at Stars' End, Han Solo's Revenge, Han Solo and the Lost Legacy) and the like, or are they going to start with a clean slate and write a new history? While I enjoyed the books, either direction would be fine by me as I'm not a rabid purist. I just am interested in knowing what they plan to do with the story.
Doesn't the government still pay farmers to NOT grow food as part of a subsidy program to reduce supply and thereby artificially raise prices?
Or was it that bears are Catholic and the Pope shits in the woods?
It will take a lot for cash to go away. While the underground economy is driving a lot of the cash use, the privacy advocates will surely fight to keep it as well.
Given that many corporations are multinational and span continents, I bet your privacy isn't nearly as guaranteed as you might think.
"..Because the site's privacy policy had promised never to sell or share members' personal details without their permission,..."
Sounds like we could charge the corporate officers with 2 million counts of fraud at least.
If we actually set a strong precedent of punishing site owners for their cavalier disregard for the promises made, I suspect this wouldn't be something we'd have much worry about.
Who are you going to charge when the business has closed its doors and a bankruptcy court is discharging its assets to creditors?
I heard the Pope is about to announce he's Catholic too.
Reason #43385634 why I try to minimize my exposure by refusing to give as much personal information as I can as often as I can. Paying in cash for day-to-day transactions helps out a lot too.
It makes all the difference. The fact that the electors are only bound by state is the only reason that the winner of the national popular vote can lose in the electoral college. That inequity is inherent in the way the states are allocated electoral votes. Some states have more electors representing fewer actual voters than others. So your single vote may count for more or less than someone in a different state.
Beyond that, the horrific gerrymandering of voting districts contributes greatly to predetermining the outcome, further diluting the value of an individual's vote. And let's not overlook the fact that some states (like TX and CA) are heavily slanted to one side or the other and there is very little chance for the state to actually choose the "other side". In those states, your vote is entirely meaningless.
The only legitimate way to make every vote count is to get rid of any system other than counting every single vote in the country and tallying up who the winner is.
"It's the economy, stupid."
I'm with you.
But only within the state they represent.
According to every count that followed the rules of voting that were in place in Forida at the time.
I don't disagree that the ballots they used were terrible and the rules were bad. But you can't change the rules after the fact. Both sides agreed to use the ballots as they were designed before the election took place, knowing there were problems with the design. And they were counted according to the rules. There is nothing you can do to change the outcome that doesn't involve breaking the rules that were in place at the time. And counting ballots in violation of the rules may demonstrate how bad the rules were, but it can't change the rules. All you can do after the fact is show how the rules and ballot design are flawed and make changes going forward.
But given all that, even though there were bad rules and flawed ballots, there is no guarantee that a better system would have altered the outcome. The only thing that came from those illegitimate recounts was a deliberate obfuscation of the issue because every organization questioning the election after the fact had an agenda. Hell, the way you physically handle punch ballots while you're recounting them can change a chad from being dimpled to being partially removed or not. And partisan counters are good at handling ballots. Changing the rules and then doing a recount is not relevant for anything but proving how the rules needed to be (and have been) changed.
So yes, the rules were bad. The ballot was a flawed design. It's impossible to know for sure because of that what the true will of the people really was. But if you follow the laws and rules in place at the time of the election there is no question how the count came out. Fortunately, the rules changed dramatically and many of these problems went away moving forward. But there will always be a shrill fringe that would never be satisfied with anything short of a complete reversal regardless of the rule of law.
Could the election have been done better by having better balloting in place? No question.
Would it have changed the outcome? Hard to say.
Could a legitimate recount have changed the outcome? Not one that followed Florida election law.
From your own link:
None of these findings are certain.
The popular vote is irrelevant when it comes to the President. The electoral college decides who is President. Or didn't you learn that in civics class?
Besides, every single effort to recount the votes in Florida showed that Bush had an even larger margin of victory than at the time of the first count. This conclusively proved that he should have gotten Florida's electoral votes and therefore win the election. The Supreme Court didn't take anything from Gore and give it to Bush. He legitimately won the election according to the long established rules.
Now, the fact that we're still using the electoral college to decide who gets elected is something worth debating. While it had its place in the 18th and 19th century, the Electoral college has long outlived its usefulness. The entire concept of winner-take-all in most states means that only a few key states actually decide our election every time it comes around. And that means a vast majority of the votes people in this country cast are entirely meaningless. And that's something that needs to change. But until the rules change, that's how the system works whether you like it or not.
Yep. Keeping flash installed and running on your computer is like going around licking people in the infectious disease ward in the hospital.