you'd think they could devote some of their time to have someone simply set all the clocks on all the hardware for the time of that night's transition
This requires resources (time, money, and effort.) A lot of federal agencies, NASA included, don't have a whole lot of resources so they have to prioritize work for the most bang for the buck. This activity probably hasn't made the cut.
or point the software at an NTP server and set that to the time it transitions.
First RFC on NTP: 18 April 1981. First space shuttle flight: 12 April 1981. NTP wasn't invented (or at least standardized) when the shuttle was designed or even built. I'm guessing it isn't implemented on the shuttle.
not to mention nearly half a trillion US dollars from the treasury - er, I mean, from Chinese bankers.
The US is considered a good investment abroad (otherwise the Chinese bankers to which you refer wouldn't invest the money here.) Last I checked, being considered a good investment is a good thing. Put this in the same category as our trade defecit with China. We can aford to buy tons of stuff (creating a defecit) because we're so prosperous. Last I checked, prosperity is a good thing.
Actually this new leadership and the new body of lawmakers just elected has the opportunity to show the world that Americans don't deserve to be attacked (and therefore we won't).
The people who went to work at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 by and large did nothing to deserve a firey death that day. I say people because it wasn't just Americans, there were even arab muslims that were murdered in those attacks. Innocent civillians do not deserve to be murdered.
You can't tell me that since a new leadership and new body of lawmakers are elected that terrorists will decide America is ok and shouldn't be attacked. The people who blow up trains, buses, planes, and buildings filled with innocent civillians don't care a whole lot about the political composition of the Congress. You can't reason with people who think blowing up commuters is an acceptable method of conveying a message because they are unreasonable.
Sometimes, people in power should have checks and balances to their ability to oppress their own people.
To quote just the Slashdot writeup:
An anonymous reader writes to point us to an article on the meaning of a new law that President Bush signed on Oct. 17
The check here is that Congress passed the law. The President never could have signed it into law if they had not first passed it.
Quoting from the submitter:
With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.
This is misleading, considering the President, even President Bush, cannot submit or pass laws in Congress. With one not so cloaked swipe of his pen, President Bush signed into law the prohibitions Congress passed.
the state can ignore the 2nd amendment all it wants.
Not true.
that amendment only applies to the feds.
The First Amendment, and all of the Bill of Rights, only applied to the federal government until the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1866. This amendment states, in part, "[...] No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States...." This is what applied the First, Second, and the rest of the Bill of Rights to the states.
now the first, that's different.
The Fourteenth Amendment didn't specify the First or exclude the Second, it applies to the entire Bill of Rights.
By this logic the First Amendment does not apply to the states yet either (after all, it only mentions Congress, not states.) However, this logic is flawed. The Fourteenth Amendment clearly states, "[...] No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States...." This means that privileges, such as the First and Second and all other amendments, apply to the states (note this was ratified in 1866, so this is not a new concept.)
Bush has raised NASA's budget (although not as much as I would prefer). Clinton is the only recent president who CUT NASA's budget both in real dollars but in constant 1996 dollars as well.
Common misconception: the President can raise or cut or change the federal budget. He or she cannot. That power is reserved to Congress in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution.
Thirdly even if this was true, it is no bar to a mathematical analysis.
The mathematical analysis is only as good as the sampling. Out of a population you have 51% voting for A, 49% voting for B. Every person in group A refuses to answer the exit poll, or they vote at the end of the day after the prime time news cast and the pollsters have already packed up, or they aren't asked because they're wearing a Vote for A shirt and the pollster doesn't like that, or they look funny, or they take the backdoor out. The poll says group B wins in a landslide. The only way to know what the real vote was is to count the votes. That is a lot easier than complicating the matter with math.
Unless you are a statistician, I'd have to say that you're just coming up with either excuses or rationalizations.
One does not have to be a statistician to know the limitations of statistics. I'm not a statistician, but I will point out that your assumptions are wrong.
Statistician live to do this stuff. When they have uncertainties, they quantify it and label it a "margin of error"
And like many disciplines, they learn from their mistakes and improve the science. In the general case of exit polls, there have been problems that the statisticians did not take into account in the 2004 election.
Don't you think all your points have already occurred to them? Do you really believe they didn't try to adjust for it?
It's now two years after the 2004 election, so technically speaking now they are probably aware of many of these issues. However, it appears that at the time, there were problems. To wit, "Our investigation of the differences between the exit poll estimates and the actual vote
count point to one primary reason: in a number of precincts a higher than average Within
Precinct Error most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher
rate than Bush voters." Source: Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004
prepared by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International
for the National Election Pool (NEP).
For cryin' out loud, it's their job & they've been doing it quite well for years.
But not perfectly. The 2004 election happened to be one of those imperfect times.
Even loosening up their assumptions beyond what could reasonably be expected (I'd say 'liberal assumptions' but I don't want to confuse the issue) didn't change the polling data enough to match what was coming out of certain states.
You overlook the possibility that the polling was systematically flawed in some respect, as was found in the paper I cited above.
So instead of doing a proper audit of the elections, we got weeks of rationalizations... all of which are being rehashed today.
Exit polls, and statistical polling in general, are an imprecise way to figure out what is going on with the population as a whole. The only way to really know what happened is to count the votes, which was done, and Kerry lost.
I'm interested to know, would you be in favor of the US moving to a parliamentary system to allow for a broader range of political views being heard?
No. Parliamentary systems, at least as I understand them, allow a party to pick the individual representatives instead of the electorate actually picking. That is, if the labour party gets 60% and the conservative party gets 40%, then the labour party boss picks 60% of the parliament and the conservative party boss picks 40% of the parliament. I much prefer the ability for a district to pick the individual who will represent them. A democrat in the south is very different from a democrat in the north, but if the national democratic party got to pick all of the members of Congress for their party I would imagine there would be far fewer conservative democrats picked than are currently elected.
We tried the party boss system back in the day (before primary elections) and it didn't work so well. I don't think we should repeat that mistake.
What changes would you make to the American political/electoral system?
I would remove all restrictions on campaign financing. I would remove all restrictions on campaign advertising, especially the restrictions that currently prohibit special interest groups from advertising close to an election. Those immediately come to mind.
Either get rid of the electoral college or change it so that the vote distribution per state is proportional to the actual voting, like I understand Maine and one other state are allowed to do.
Nebraska is the other state. Any state can implement this policy (a nice manifestation of states' rights.) I happen to like the electoral college, for some of the reasons in this article, but mainly because it keeps the interests of a number of huge urban areas from deciding the presidential election.
An inexact science, which is ok in many instances. Statistics are used because it's cheaper to test or ask a smaller number of people in a population than it is to ask every single member of a population. The whole point of an election is to ask every single person in the population.
here we have the best science to date to detect electoral fraud telling us that the election was stolen
How do you propose to do that? An exit poll? A telephone poll? A visit the voter's house poll? Many conservatives don't respond to polls. Their vote is no one else's business, including pollsters. If they don't respond to the polls, they are underrepresented in the poll data. The statistics may look one way while the real data is another way. It's an inexact science.
If you want to know how people voted, count the votes.
There will be wide margins in exit polls for Democrats and the Republicans will win anyway.
What does that prove? Many conservatives like to be left alone so they don't respond to polls (exit or otherwise.) Their vote is nobody's business but their own, after all. If they don't respond to polls they don't show up in the polling data. So the conservative vote gets under counted and it looks like whoever responds to the polls (maybe disproportinately Democrats) has a wide margin. Thus, the exit poll doesn't accurately assess what the real votes were.
If you want to know how people voted, count the votes.
Try your line of argument the next time you deal with a wedding photographer and see how far it gets you.
A wedding photographer is work for hire. Usually when someone says employee, it's a person direct for a company that shows up a number of hours every week and gets a paycheck periodically. Apples and oranges. If you want the IP of the photographer, put it in the contract for the work.
I'm sure that their TOS/EULA says that uploading my work for screening says that I'm granting them that permission. But, if the school is doing the checking -- I am not the one granting the permission.
As I recall, the process was something like: student is required to get Turnit in account (usually the first assignment of the semester in English). To get said account I'm sure the EULA granted Turnitin all the rights they wanted. Then, when turning in the paper, the student had to submit it to Turnitin (or the paper was late/not turned in). I'm not sure what the teachers did, but I'm sure they got some kind of report about the authenticity of said papers. So, the school does the checking but the student grants the permission. Your argument about requiring public schools not to use this is better. Extend that to public universities, please.
To me, it's just juvenile egoism shining brightly.
Maybe his particular statement, but I will come to his defense.
"I like the way the rules help me in one way, I don't like the way the rules constrain me in another way."
Well in one instance the rules are forcing devices to not interfere with eachother, a fairly useful form of government regulation. In the other case the regulation puts a constraint on the First Amendment ("Congress shall make now law [...] abridging the freedom of speech"), an illegal form of government regulation. The Constitution prohibits the Congress from authorizing the FCC to regulate speech. I would tend to think the Constitution prohibits the Congress from creating the FCC in the first place, but that's an argument for another day.
Perhaps you might consider that some of us would prefer that you pollute your own yard, not the collective commons that is the public airwaves.
You're free to change the channel. Society does not benefit from the violation of the First Amendment.
When you have massive corporations dominating an infastructure heavy industry like telecoms then it is often not the government who 'meddles' but the corporations themselves.
First, if there is more than one company providing infrastructure then there is competition (see: competition between cable broadband and DSL.)
Second, if you don't like a company that meddles (or how they meddle), you can refuse to pay them. If you don't like the government meddling (or how they meddle), and you refuse to pay them, you go to jail. The same thing happens when huge companies are able to influence the government to provide them protection. If the government were prohibited from such actions (as with the concept of limited government) then companies would have to compete in the market.
That's the real problem with government intervention: it is potentially at the behest of the corporations (and not the electorate.) If the government were prohibited (again with limited government) from providing protection for special companies then they would have little or no influence (because they don't have anything to influence except the limitation that government not provide them protection.)
when the goods are unlimited, why do they cost anything?
Because "the goods" are not the only factor of production. First, to get access to the goods over the Internet requires purchase of Internet service. Next, a professional sounding album requires sound engineers, producers, and a whole host of people. There is not an infinite supply of qualified people to fill these roles, so they must be paid a market wage for their value added to the album production.
I suppose if you set-up a random number generator to output bits you would have an unlimited supply of "music," but even this requires energy to run the computer (and energy is not free.)
Yeah, I love your music, just not enough to buy the album of which over 80% of the revenue you don't even see because it all goes to the recording companies.
If you only love the music live, then pay to go to the concert. Even there you are paying an overhead fee for bouncers, ticket offices, stage hands, etc. The artist won't get 100% of the ticket price unless the artist makes the tickets himself, holds the concert on his own property, and has all volunteer staff (which is unlikley if the concert is big.)
If you like the recorded music, then you are hearing the efforts of sound engineers, studios, producers, managers for all of those, secretaries for all of those, office space for all of those, parking for all of those, benefits for all of those, janitorial service for all of those, and the list goes on. In that case, it is appropriate to pay the other 80% because it compensates people who contributed to your audio experience. Even if you only want a live album, a live album requires all of a studio album sans the studio time, but I would imagine it requires more microphone setup time, etc. Either way, the appropriate people get paid when you purchase the album instead of obtaining it illegally.
If you don't like the price, don't buy the service or the product. Not liking the price, however, does not mean you are entitled to the service or product for free.
How much money does a teen steal from you when he or she rips off your CD? 11, 12 cents, if you're lucky?
I assume you mean the artist gets 12 cents per album sale. Yes, that's all a person would steal from the artist, however the artist is not the only cost factor in album production. First there is the raw material and manufacturing. Then there is distribution. Plus studio time, audio engineers, producers, accounting, payroll, web developers, system administrators, advertising, marketing, managers for all of the above, secretaries for all of the above, office space, parking space, etc. Copyright infringement robs all of these people as well.
Did you know, for example, that if you sell a thousand copied of an album through the music industry, you will make pennies, whereas if you sell that many yourself, you will make much much more?
A true statement. However most artists would prefer to sleep, tour, and party instead of burning CDs all day and driving across country to put them in stores and make sure shelves are full. Any rational person should make a cost-benefit analysis for signing with a record company. The down side to doing so is that you make less of a profit percentage (due to overhead). The upside is that you don't have to perform or organize that overhead on your own.
And it goes to prove just how unnecessary the music industry really is.
Unnecessary, yes. But useful since most artists want to write and perform instead of managing production and distribution chains.
But if I had a choice, I'd rather pay the artist than the middle manager, the T-shirt guy and the tour promoter.
You do have a choice. Only purchase music from independent artists. This, however, does not mean you are entitled to illegal copies of copyrighted material.
They already knew Iraq had sarin and other ancient pre-1991 WMD's because the US gave Saddam these weapons. [Emphasis origional.]
Right, which is why the US knows that the Hussein regime did not account for all the WMDs they were supposed to destroy during the UN weapons inspections post-1991.
There was a concerted effort a couple of weeks ago by Republicans in Congress to promote these ancient and non-functional weapons as "OMG the WMD's! Take that liberals!!"
Or as yet more proof that Hussein was still violating UN sanctions by having not reported and destroyed these weapons.
Makes you wonder about all of those places with free wireless (St*rbucks, P@nera)...
It doesn't make me wonder. I check the SSL certificate to make sure it matches the site I want to communicate with (and not wjsrootsKARMAap). A simple technological solution, backed by mathematical properties, to the problem.
The "free speech" (that is, money) of the lobbyists will still be heard much louder than the faint buzzing of the taxpayers.
Lobbyists get one vote, just like the taxpayers eligible to vote.
Note that I do not call them "citizens," as that would raise the status of the rabble equal to that of the corporation, the only citizen that matters anymore.
Corporations get zero votes, which is infinitely fewer votes than citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't tell me that since a new leadership and new body of lawmakers are elected that terrorists will decide America is ok and shouldn't be attacked. The people who blow up trains, buses, planes, and buildings filled with innocent civillians don't care a whole lot about the political composition of the Congress. You can't reason with people who think blowing up commuters is an acceptable method of conveying a message because they are unreasonable.
We tried the party boss system back in the day (before primary elections) and it didn't work so well. I don't think we should repeat that mistake. I would remove all restrictions on campaign financing. I would remove all restrictions on campaign advertising, especially the restrictions that currently prohibit special interest groups from advertising close to an election. Those immediately come to mind.
If you want to know how people voted, count the votes.
If you want to know how people voted, count the votes.
Second, if you don't like a company that meddles (or how they meddle), you can refuse to pay them. If you don't like the government meddling (or how they meddle), and you refuse to pay them, you go to jail. The same thing happens when huge companies are able to influence the government to provide them protection. If the government were prohibited from such actions (as with the concept of limited government) then companies would have to compete in the market.
That's the real problem with government intervention: it is potentially at the behest of the corporations (and not the electorate.) If the government were prohibited (again with limited government) from providing protection for special companies then they would have little or no influence (because they don't have anything to influence except the limitation that government not provide them protection.)
I suppose if you set-up a random number generator to output bits you would have an unlimited supply of "music," but even this requires energy to run the computer (and energy is not free.)
If you like the recorded music, then you are hearing the efforts of sound engineers, studios, producers, managers for all of those, secretaries for all of those, office space for all of those, parking for all of those, benefits for all of those, janitorial service for all of those, and the list goes on. In that case, it is appropriate to pay the other 80% because it compensates people who contributed to your audio experience. Even if you only want a live album, a live album requires all of a studio album sans the studio time, but I would imagine it requires more microphone setup time, etc. Either way, the appropriate people get paid when you purchase the album instead of obtaining it illegally.
If you don't like the price, don't buy the service or the product. Not liking the price, however, does not mean you are entitled to the service or product for free.