As silly as it sounds...we will survive just like we always have. One day at a time.
There have been plenty of forecasters of doom saying that the earth would run out of space, food, energy and whatnot and the population continues to expand.
We'll muddle our way through the next 100 years just like we have the few thousand prior to this one.
...of course with GoogleMaps, GoogleSuggest, GMail, GoogleGroups and a host of other innovative best of class apps...I don't see Google sitting around picking their noses.
Google is creating kick ass products internally and buying best of breed when they see a good fit/missing expertise. Nothing wrong at all with this.
This reminds me of why Wal*Mart has kicked so much ass. When a company comes to them with a marketing blitz they just tell them to either lower the price or make the product better.
Re:third party could be very influential in evenl
on
The Nader Factor
·
· Score: 1
This is only true becuase the R's and the D's have a vice grip on their politicians.
If a pol gets out of line, guess what...they will lose in their next primary and they won't be there next time.
Why can't we have a conservative republican that believes in protecting the environment? Why can't we have a liberal democrat that really believes in balancing the budget?
It's quite simple...because those that run the party won't tolerate folks that don't toe the party line 100%.
Only in that type of environment would a third party be powerful. In fact, it might help moderate the extemes that have become the R and D party. Who knows?
Technically, it is not necessary to be on the ballot in any state in order to win. We've always had the "write-in" option.
I don't know other states election laws, but North Carolina will not count write-in candidates unless they have qualified for write-in ballot access by submitting at least 5,000 signatures of registered NC voters by a certain deadline.
In 2000, Nader did not qualify for write-in and anyone who voted for him truely wasted their votes!
For 2004, three candidates have qualified for write-in status: Walt Brown and Mary Alice Herbert David Cobb Ralph Nader
Previous to the formation of the debate commission, most presidential debates were run by the League of Women Voters...but they didn't put on informercials like the current debates. In addition, they were a bit to eager to allow third party candidates (Anderson in 1980). So the debate commission was born.
In addition don't forget about Perot in '92. Back then, the third party threshhold was 5% in the polls. So Perot was added. In '96 the threshhold was raised to 15% and no Perot.
The simple fact is the two parties will do what they can to exclude real debate and exclude alternative points of view. They don't want to give the voters a choice.
The term most used nowadays is "Full Representation" and they are as varied as the colors of the rainbow.
You can have party based systems like they have in Europe (ick!). Or you can have multi-member districts with limited voting, cumulative voting or choice voting. Personally, I like limited voting.
It goes like this, let's say you have a district with 5 members. Everyone gets one (or some number less than 5) votes. The top 5 vote getters win with the highest vote getters being the "senior" members from that district.
Cummulative Voting is similar as well. 5 members in the district, and each voter gets 5 votes. They can use all 5 on the same candidate or vote for 5 different candidates. The top 5 vote getters are elected.
They are pretty simple. The reason they are called "full" representation systems instead of proportional representation because you don't look at the % of votes and then determine the winners...you just count the votes and the higest vote totals win.
1992: 48% voted R and won 30%(9) of the US House seats 50% voted D and won 70%(21) of the US House seats
1994: 56% voted R and won 37%(11) of the US House seats 42% voted D and won 63%(19) of the US House seats
1996: 54% voted R and won 43%(13) of the US House seats 44% voted D and won 57%(17) of the US House seats
1998: 52% voted R and won 43%(13) of the US House seats 44% voted D and won 57%(17) of the US House seats
2000: 48.0% voted R and won 43%(13) of the US House seats 46.7% voted D and won 57%(17) of the US House seats
2002: 53% voted R and won 47%(15) of the US House seats 44% voted D and won 53%(17) of the US House seats
Any way you cut it, for the past ten years Texas has consistently had more R's voting than D's and yet they have lagged in actual representation by a VERY LARGE percentage!
I don't endores what the Republicans are doing in Texas because I think it is wrong, but the Democrats should not be complaining! They have been disenfranchising Republicans for quite some time! Turn about is fair play.
Maybe one of these days folks will adopt multi-member districts with cummulative voting or some other full representation system.
Why not just invite those candidates who can win the electoral college? That seems like a very sensible requirement.
That would mean inviting the following: Badnarik - 49 states, 527 possible electors Cobb - 28 states, 286 possible electors Nader - 36 states, 299 possible electors (in court in 5 more for a total of 41 with 388 electors) Peroutka - 38 states for 366 electors ( 1 in court that would add 4 electors)
See isn't that easy. These four, along with Bush and Kerry are the only candidates that can win the electoral college. Why not allow them in the debates?
The Democrats had debates with nine and ten candidates during the primary and we didn't see Mosley-Braun, Sharpton, Lieberman, Edwards, Gephardt and Kucinich get excluded despite the fact they routinely polled less than 15% and had no chance of winning!
If the Democrats can put on a national debate with ten candidates, certainly we can do it with only 6 candidates?
We should not change the US constitution..i have a better way. patition your state govenment to reform where you electorial votes go...most states have a system that the winner takes all, that is that when a candidate gets a majority even if it is only 51% all the electorial votes go to that one candidate. In some state (i don't know which all i know is i don't live in one) allow its electorial votes to be split
1) You wouldn't need to change the constitution. As you stated, the states set up how they vote. If a state wanted to use IRV, Concordent or another voting method they could as long as it passed the hurdles set forth in the Voting Rights Act.
2) Our current system is Plurality winner, not majority winner. As show when Perot ran in 1992, a candidate needed only 33% + 1 vote to win 100% of the electoral votes in a state. I believe Clinton only won a majority of the vote in a very small handful of states and won only 43% of the popular vote nationally.
3) Nebraska and Maine are the two states that split their electoral vote with Colorado a possible, they have an amendment on their ballot this year that could change to that method.
I don't have a link, but I believe in a six-way race Nader was drawing 2% with Cobb and Badnarik drawing 1% each with Pteroutka registering under 1%.
If I recall during the Democratic debates Carol Moseley Braun, Dennis Kucinich averaged well under 5% in most polls. Yet they were never excluded from the debates. Why?
Where are Nader, Cobb, Peroutka and Badnarik?
on
Presidential Debates Set
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· Score: 2, Informative
Badnarik is on 49 ballots. Cobb is in 28 ballots. Nader is on 44 ballots Peroutka is on 39 ballots.
All four candidates have the potential to win the Electoral College due to the states on which they have ballot access.
Why does the "nonpartisan" debate commission insist on excluding every candidate that can win?
With the Democratic Primary debates we saw that you can have a debate with 10 candidates, so why not have one with 6?
It is a shame that Republicans talk about economic freedom and Democrats talk about personal freedom, but at the end of the day neither party wants you to have POLITICAL FREEDOM!
Interestingly enough, most of the original superfund sites were on government property! The government has proven they damage the environment more than public companies! Yet we entrust the government to take care of the enironment!
LOL!
While the Libertarian position has its problems, it's better than the current situation. I'd be happy with a middle ground...subject the government to the same environmental standards and hold those who give and follow the orders to pollute criminally liable
Do you really think anyone beyond apple fan-boys will actualy base their choice of player on the interface?
This sounds like someone who has never held an iPod or used teh click wheel. It's just absolutely amazing! Is it worth a $25 premium? A $50 premium? A $100 premium? I don't know...but all I can say is that having played with an iPod click wheel I would be hard pressed to purchase anything else. I think it is that good.
Of course, that is why I don't own an mp3 player. I don't want to shell out the money for an iPod but I'm not willing to settle on anything less.
... oddly, the fancy transmission hurts highway fuel efficiency, but it helps in the city.
It has nothing to do with the transmission, but with the gas/electric powerplant.
In the city you have a few things working for you...for example, the Toyota Prius accelerates on Electric only until it hits 15 mph when the gas engine turns on. Obviously, if you aren't using the gas engine, you'll get great gas mileage!
However, highway driving you are always running the gas engine and the high air resistance will mean you are pushing the engine pretty hard.
The CVT transmission is actually brilliant for gas mileage because it keeps engine running in a very narrow RPM band. This allows the engine to be tuned to deliver optimum output in that power band. Additionally, these hybrid gas engines have a low max-power RPM than other engines allowing some weight savings in the design of the engine.
I agree to you up to a certain point. However, we are not dealing with a commodity that has an ever decreasing price. The labels have been AMAZINGLY effective (even to the point of price fixing) to keep the price of music at a certain amount. This isn't going to change on-line. iTunes, Real or whoever else enters the market will have to deal with the price inflexibility of the music labels.
Sure someone could *try* and sign record labels at $0.50 a track, but why would they do that when Apple will give them $0.65 a track? Even indy labels and bands will realize that a higher selling price benifits them (as long as their product sells at that price).
Labels won't shoot themselves in the foot and lower their price. Developing a music store including DRM, signing labels, and all that jazz is a VERY expensive proposition. The price isn't going down any time soon.
This is one of the reasons that Google's Text Ads are so freakin effective.
If I want to purchase something, I just type it into Google and look at the right side ads that are displayed. More often than not they are MORE accurate than the google search results (which might contain non-commercial fan sites and whatnot).
Google has created the on-line shopping mall that we've always wanted! It works, because we go to google looking to buy and people advertise on google looking to sell. JACKPOT!
If commuters are the problem, why not pass a law prohibiting companies within the congestion zone from hiring employees that don't live in the congestion zone? That should take care the problem.
For every problem there is a law that can solve it!
[blockquote]Six years ago, Fast Company proled a team at Lockheed-Martin that wrote nearly perfect code ( "They Write the Right Stuff," Dec : Jan 1997 ). The team's claim to fame: It was one of only four outts in the world to achieve Level 5 certication from the Software Engineering Institute. Wipro has Level 5 certication in three different categories. It's eye-glazing stuff, but an amazing achievement.
Such accomplishments conrmed that Wipro's developers weren't just cheap: They were cheap and very, very good. [/quality]
Trust me, these folks are VERY concerned about their careers and their industry. They are also very concerned about quality.
Which is why we should be worried. It's why we should strive to produce better code and strive to do it quicker. It's why we should stop reading Slashdot so much and work more.
Outfits like this are not fly by night charlies that churn out crap, they are some of the best in the world. We (software professionals) will either step up to the plate and hit a home run and prove our worth or we will get run over like textiles and electronic manufacturing.
Slashdot Mirror
As silly as it sounds...we will survive just like we always have. One day at a time.
There have been plenty of forecasters of doom saying that the earth would run out of space, food, energy and whatnot and the population continues to expand.
We'll muddle our way through the next 100 years just like we have the few thousand prior to this one.
...of course with GoogleMaps, GoogleSuggest, GMail, GoogleGroups and a host of other innovative best of class apps...I don't see Google sitting around picking their noses.
Google is creating kick ass products internally and buying best of breed when they see a good fit/missing expertise. Nothing wrong at all with this.
If I had to guess, I would say Christmas is the major culprit.
Folks get a new PC for Christmas and what is the only browser loaded on it? That's right, IE.
So they use IE for a few months until someone tells them about Firefox.
I wonder how many PC's were given as preasants this Holiday season?
This reminds me of why Wal*Mart has kicked so much ass. When a company comes to them with a marketing blitz they just tell them to either lower the price or make the product better.
This is only true becuase the R's and the D's have a vice grip on their politicians.
If a pol gets out of line, guess what...they will lose in their next primary and they won't be there next time.
Why can't we have a conservative republican that believes in protecting the environment? Why can't we have a liberal democrat that really believes in balancing the budget?
It's quite simple...because those that run the party won't tolerate folks that don't toe the party line 100%.
Only in that type of environment would a third party be powerful. In fact, it might help moderate the extemes that have become the R and D party. Who knows?
...when the government takes 50% of my paycheck to use for social welfare and engineering?
Perhaps, if the government took less...folks would be more charitable?
As it is...I give a few hundred $ a month to charities of my choice. I'd give more if I had more to give.
I believe part of the question on IRV/Full Represenation I submitted made it as part of Q5 (name, age, state, subject all match).
:(
While it's nice to see my question asked, it is very disheartening to see my question ignored.
*sigh*
I don't know other states election laws, but North Carolina will not count write-in candidates unless they have qualified for write-in ballot access by submitting at least 5,000 signatures of registered NC voters by a certain deadline.
In 2000, Nader did not qualify for write-in and anyone who voted for him truely wasted their votes!
For 2004, three candidates have qualified for write-in status:
Walt Brown and Mary Alice Herbert
David Cobb
Ralph Nader
Previous to the formation of the debate commission, most presidential debates were run by the League of Women Voters...but they didn't put on informercials like the current debates. In addition, they were a bit to eager to allow third party candidates (Anderson in 1980). So the debate commission was born.
In addition don't forget about Perot in '92. Back then, the third party threshhold was 5% in the polls. So Perot was added. In '96 the threshhold was raised to 15% and no Perot.
The simple fact is the two parties will do what they can to exclude real debate and exclude alternative points of view. They don't want to give the voters a choice.
http://www.fairvote.org/pr/whatis.htm
Junior,
The term most used nowadays is "Full Representation" and they are as varied as the colors of the rainbow.
You can have party based systems like they have in Europe (ick!). Or you can have multi-member districts with limited voting, cumulative voting or choice voting. Personally, I like limited voting.
It goes like this, let's say you have a district with 5 members. Everyone gets one (or some number less than 5) votes. The top 5 vote getters win with the highest vote getters being the "senior" members from that district.
Cummulative Voting is similar as well. 5 members in the district, and each voter gets 5 votes. They can use all 5 on the same candidate or vote for 5 different candidates. The top 5 vote getters are elected.
They are pretty simple. The reason they are called "full" representation systems instead of proportional representation because you don't look at the % of votes and then determine the winners...you just count the votes and the higest vote totals win.
http://www.fairvote.org/dubdem/tx.htm
1992:
48% voted R and won 30%(9) of the US House seats
50% voted D and won 70%(21) of the US House seats
1994:
56% voted R and won 37%(11) of the US House seats
42% voted D and won 63%(19) of the US House seats
1996:
54% voted R and won 43%(13) of the US House seats
44% voted D and won 57%(17) of the US House seats
1998:
52% voted R and won 43%(13) of the US House seats
44% voted D and won 57%(17) of the US House seats
2000:
48.0% voted R and won 43%(13) of the US House seats
46.7% voted D and won 57%(17) of the US House seats
2002:
53% voted R and won 47%(15) of the US House seats
44% voted D and won 53%(17) of the US House seats
Any way you cut it, for the past ten years Texas has consistently had more R's voting than D's and yet they have lagged in actual representation by a VERY LARGE percentage!
I don't endores what the Republicans are doing in Texas because I think it is wrong, but the Democrats should not be complaining! They have been disenfranchising Republicans for quite some time! Turn about is fair play.
Maybe one of these days folks will adopt multi-member districts with cummulative voting or some other full representation system.
Why not just invite those candidates who can win the electoral college? That seems like a very sensible requirement.
That would mean inviting the following:
Badnarik - 49 states, 527 possible electors
Cobb - 28 states, 286 possible electors
Nader - 36 states, 299 possible electors (in court in 5 more for a total of 41 with 388 electors)
Peroutka - 38 states for 366 electors ( 1 in court that would add 4 electors)
See isn't that easy. These four, along with Bush and Kerry are the only candidates that can win the electoral college. Why not allow them in the debates?
The Democrats had debates with nine and ten candidates during the primary and we didn't see Mosley-Braun, Sharpton, Lieberman, Edwards, Gephardt and Kucinich get excluded despite the fact they routinely polled less than 15% and had no chance of winning!
If the Democrats can put on a national debate with ten candidates, certainly we can do it with only 6 candidates?
I don't have a link, but I believe in a six-way race Nader was drawing 2% with Cobb and Badnarik drawing 1% each with Pteroutka registering under 1%.
If I recall during the Democratic debates Carol Moseley Braun, Dennis Kucinich averaged well under 5% in most polls. Yet they were never excluded from the debates. Why?
Badnarik is on 49 ballots.
Cobb is in 28 ballots.
Nader is on 44 ballots
Peroutka is on 39 ballots.
All four candidates have the potential to win the Electoral College due to the states on which they have ballot access.
Why does the "nonpartisan" debate commission insist on excluding every candidate that can win?
With the Democratic Primary debates we saw that you can have a debate with 10 candidates, so why not have one with 6?
It is a shame that Republicans talk about economic freedom and Democrats talk about personal freedom, but at the end of the day neither party wants you to have POLITICAL FREEDOM!
Interestingly enough, most of the original superfund sites were on government property! The government has proven they damage the environment more than public companies! Yet we entrust the government to take care of the enironment!
LOL!
While the Libertarian position has its problems, it's better than the current situation. I'd be happy with a middle ground...subject the government to the same environmental standards and hold those who give and follow the orders to pollute criminally liable
It has nothing to do with the transmission, but with the gas/electric powerplant.
In the city you have a few things working for you...for example, the Toyota Prius accelerates on Electric only until it hits 15 mph when the gas engine turns on. Obviously, if you aren't using the gas engine, you'll get great gas mileage!
However, highway driving you are always running the gas engine and the high air resistance will mean you are pushing the engine pretty hard.
The CVT transmission is actually brilliant for gas mileage because it keeps engine running in a very narrow RPM band. This allows the engine to be tuned to deliver optimum output in that power band. Additionally, these hybrid gas engines have a low max-power RPM than other engines allowing some weight savings in the design of the engine.
Let's get one thing straight! The article should read researchers from North Carolina STATE...!
GO TO HELL CAROLINA! GO TO HELL!
I agree to you up to a certain point. However, we are not dealing with a commodity that has an ever decreasing price. The labels have been AMAZINGLY effective (even to the point of price fixing) to keep the price of music at a certain amount. This isn't going to change on-line. iTunes, Real or whoever else enters the market will have to deal with the price inflexibility of the music labels.
Sure someone could *try* and sign record labels at $0.50 a track, but why would they do that when Apple will give them $0.65 a track? Even indy labels and bands will realize that a higher selling price benifits them (as long as their product sells at that price).
Labels won't shoot themselves in the foot and lower their price. Developing a music store including DRM, signing labels, and all that jazz is a VERY expensive proposition. The price isn't going down any time soon.
This is one of the reasons that Google's Text Ads are so freakin effective.
If I want to purchase something, I just type it into Google and look at the right side ads that are displayed. More often than not they are MORE accurate than the google search results (which might contain non-commercial fan sites and whatnot).
Google has created the on-line shopping mall that we've always wanted! It works, because we go to google looking to buy and people advertise on google looking to sell. JACKPOT!
If commuters are the problem, why not pass a law prohibiting companies within the congestion zone from hiring employees that don't live in the congestion zone? That should take care the problem.
For every problem there is a law that can solve it!
Next?
Perhaps you should read the article closely.
[blockquote]Six years ago, Fast Company proled a team at Lockheed-Martin that wrote nearly perfect code ( "They Write the Right Stuff," Dec : Jan 1997 ). The team's claim to fame: It was one of only four outts in the world to achieve Level 5 certication from the Software Engineering Institute. Wipro has Level 5 certication in three different categories. It's eye-glazing stuff, but an amazing achievement.
Such accomplishments conrmed that Wipro's developers weren't just cheap: They were cheap and very, very good. [/quality]
Trust me, these folks are VERY concerned about their careers and their industry. They are also very concerned about quality.
Which is why we should be worried. It's why we should strive to produce better code and strive to do it quicker. It's why we should stop reading Slashdot so much and work more.
Outfits like this are not fly by night charlies that churn out crap, they are some of the best in the world. We (software professionals) will either step up to the plate and hit a home run and prove our worth or we will get run over like textiles and electronic manufacturing.