our flatulant, pompus general lost another battle. This is hopeless. We've lost every battle so far, and General Washington keeps retreating. Will we retreat all the way to the territories? How am I to get back to this fall's harvest if the British burn our fields?
Indeed, the times are grim, and I wonder what is to become of us. All we hear is how things are going well, but all I see is death and retreat.
-----
People on the ground rarely have any idea of what's going on.
The United States of America is technically a government of, for, and by the States. It's a government of the people insamuch as the People live, work, and vote in the States.
This is something that is glossed over in most history classes, so most of you never have been exposed to the idea. Back in the day, the idea of any kind of overarching government was an anathema to both the People and the States. However, it was recognized that some things (international relations, interstate commerce, war & peace, etc) were handled more effectively by a government representing the states, and that could mediate between the states.
It was also recognized that the Continental Congress was broken, as it couldn't pay off all those Revolutionary War soldiers who were, in some instances, taking over state houses and threatening Congress with death, etc.
So, well, that's the genesis of the American government. It was put together by a surprisingly talented bunch of men, with a distinct perspective on the world and the behavior of mankind. So far, their system has mostly worked.
The reason the electors are good is because they act as a failsafe. I think that most electors are bound by law to vote the way the state votes. However, just because the law says something doesn't mean you have to follow it. If a majority of the electors felt that someone would be a Bad Choice, they could bolt...or abstain...or something.
That's the last check. It's unclear what would happen in that case, but you never know. Rogue electors might be legal enough to throw the election to the House. Who knows?
While the feds have some control over this, the issue really is more of a local issue. Localities like Portland have restricted and channeled growth, while others like Houston don't really have anything close to zoning (from what I understand).
Kind of pointless to ask, except from a natural resources/wilderness point of view. But even those things (arctic drilling, timber harvesting, etc) won't affect your local quality-of-life.
I remember reading about massive Democratic vote fraud in St. Louis last election. Maybe they should start there?
Maybe they should also educate the voters. A whole sh*tload of Democratic votes were thrown out in Florida because Democratic operatives told their just-registered voters "just make a mark on each page." Doh, invalidated ballots!
It might be worth it to force all the states to count all the ballots, too. In the last election states stopped counting once the margin was large enough that counting wouldn't affect the outcome. That might give lie to the "Bush lost the popular vote" crap. Just think that in Texas, they might have only counted 1 million votes because Gore only got 27 votes!
It's no star wars ripoff. WTF is the OP talking about? It had a decent plotline and was fun to watch, which is a lot more than you can say about star wars 1,2, and 6, and probably 3.
It has acting and writing at a level that George Lucas can only dream about.
Yeah, it's a genre film, but so was battlestar galactica.
Something like this was covered a long time ago in "The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design."
The particular article dealt with stages of language. There's rough communication (usually done by adults in a foreign country that don't speak the language). There's pidgin, which is invented by the children and is a blend of the original and native tongues. Then there's a real language that pops, usually created by kids listening to the pidgin.
I guess it happened again, so it's reproducable now and could be considered a "fact."
It's been years since I've read the above book. It's a classic in the field, but is probably long in the tooth by now.
Looks like Sun went out and redid their filesystem based on the performance characteristics of machines today, instead of machines of yesteryear.
Some highllights, for those that don't (or won't) RTA:
* Data integrity. Apparently it uses file checksums to error-correct files, so files will never be corrupted. About time someone did this.
* Snapshots, like netapp?
* Transactional nature/copy-on-write
* Auto-striping
* Really, Really Large volume support
All of this leads to speed and reliability. There's a lot of other stuff (varying blocks sizes, write queueing, stride stuff which I haven't heard about in years), but all of it leads to above.
Oh, and they simplified their admin too.
It's hard to make a filesystem look exciting. Most of the time it just works, until it fails. The data checksum stuff looks interesting, in that they built error correction into the FS (like CDs and RAID but better hopefully).
It might also do away with the idea of "space free on a volume," since the marketing implies that each FS grows/shrinks dynamically, pulling storage out of the pool as needed.
I agree! Nature's Miracle was the first thing I thought of too.
The best way to do this might be to get a spray bottle, and spray it (from maybe 1.5 feet away) towards the fan intakes. It might be worth it to fog the whole room, though I'm not sure what that'll entail.
I've noticed that people (including myself) who enjoy working under massive amounts of pressure don't work really well when there is no pressure at all. Go figure, huh?
I nominate the users! Without them, OSS would be nothing. They (we) have had to tramp through jungles of man pages, frozen tundra of bugs, the lack-of-support desert, and climb huge learning curves.
With all the brainpower here, it's surprising that nobody's asked "why is Microsoft doing this?"
When iTMS came out, MS said explicitly that it wasn't going to get into the music download business. It's partners (or, I suppose, potential victims) already had large investments in online storefronts, and its other partners already sold WMA-enabled devices.
So why did MS decide to get into music?
I think the HP/Apple deal had something to do with it. One of MS' biggest customers went with another vendor (Apple). That must have galled MS. The PC side has device vendors and music stores, but there was no single-vendor solution. The WMA hardware vendors were probably complaining to Mama that MS wasn't helping them on the software side.
And when you look at it, how stable is are the WMA-based music stores? Real? Napster? Wal-Mart? Any of them could flake out at any moment, deciding that the business wasn't good enough. None of them are stable enough for a real long-term partnership.
By providing an MS music store, MS removes one barrier to WMA-based music stores: vendor instability. It supports the WMA-licensees. It opens up licensing opportunities.
Note there's no consumer benefit here, really.
The question is will MS be able to run this afterthought storefront?
iTMS is about the iPod, not Apple. People use iTMS because it's easy and nice to use, and it works with their pod. MS Music is about...hardware vendor support?
It'll be interesting to see how long MS Music lasts, and more interesting to see who the first few licensees will be.
Is google an advertising channel or a search engine? Right now the advertising channel only exists because of the search engine, and the channel is what's making them money.
How does google make its advertising independent of its search?
How do you broaden search to make it more useful?
What kinds of things are people searching for?
What's happening to their enterprise search business?
When businesses want information, how do they get it?
I'd expect them to buy doubleclick as their first acquisition.
If you can't understand something enough to put it into words, you don't understand it well enough. Everybody that is at the top of their field can explain what they're doing and/or thinking. You might not be able to understand what they're saying, but they know (and can say) exactly what they're doing at any given time.
That includes artists, btw.
If you can't articulate, you're just not good enough. Try harder.
Slashdot Mirror
---
Dear mum,
our flatulant, pompus general lost another battle. This is hopeless. We've lost every battle so far, and General Washington keeps retreating. Will we retreat all the way to the territories? How am I to get back to this fall's harvest if the British burn our fields?
Indeed, the times are grim, and I wonder what is to become of us. All we hear is how things are going well, but all I see is death and retreat.
-----
People on the ground rarely have any idea of what's going on.
I watched the debate too, maybe was paying a bit more attention?
Someone who has made no mistakes is someone who hasn't done much of anything. /should be a proverb, or something
The states, not the people, choose the President.
The United States of America is technically a government of, for, and by the States. It's a government of the people insamuch as the People live, work, and vote in the States.
This is something that is glossed over in most history classes, so most of you never have been exposed to the idea. Back in the day, the idea of any kind of overarching government was an anathema to both the People and the States. However, it was recognized that some things (international relations, interstate commerce, war & peace, etc) were handled more effectively by a government representing the states, and that could mediate between the states.
It was also recognized that the Continental Congress was broken, as it couldn't pay off all those Revolutionary War soldiers who were, in some instances, taking over state houses and threatening Congress with death, etc.
So, well, that's the genesis of the American government. It was put together by a surprisingly talented bunch of men, with a distinct perspective on the world and the behavior of mankind. So far, their system has mostly worked.
The reason the electors are good is because they act as a failsafe. I think that most electors are bound by law to vote the way the state votes. However, just because the law says something doesn't mean you have to follow it. If a majority of the electors felt that someone would be a Bad Choice, they could bolt...or abstain...or something.
That's the last check. It's unclear what would happen in that case, but you never know. Rogue electors might be legal enough to throw the election to the House. Who knows?
I agree, it'll be interesting to see the answer. This would be a great question for most job interviews as well.
It's always good to ask "why should I vote for you?" and "why do you want the job?"
While the feds have some control over this, the issue really is more of a local issue. Localities like Portland have restricted and channeled growth, while others like Houston don't really have anything close to zoning (from what I understand).
Kind of pointless to ask, except from a natural resources/wilderness point of view. But even those things (arctic drilling, timber harvesting, etc) won't affect your local quality-of-life.
Mod down (don't have mod points today).
I remember reading about massive Democratic vote fraud in St. Louis last election. Maybe they should start there?
Maybe they should also educate the voters. A whole sh*tload of Democratic votes were thrown out in Florida because Democratic operatives told their just-registered voters "just make a mark on each page." Doh, invalidated ballots!
It might be worth it to force all the states to count all the ballots, too. In the last election states stopped counting once the margin was large enough that counting wouldn't affect the outcome. That might give lie to the "Bush lost the popular vote" crap. Just think that in Texas, they might have only counted 1 million votes because Gore only got 27 votes!
Simple question: Senator Kerry, what have you done in the last 20 years that shows you'd be an effective president?
It's no star wars ripoff. WTF is the OP talking about? It had a decent plotline and was fun to watch, which is a lot more than you can say about star wars 1,2, and 6, and probably 3.
It has acting and writing at a level that George Lucas can only dream about.
Yeah, it's a genre film, but so was battlestar galactica.
Something like this was covered a long time ago in "The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design."
The particular article dealt with stages of language. There's rough communication (usually done by adults in a foreign country that don't speak the language). There's pidgin, which is invented by the children and is a blend of the original and native tongues. Then there's a real language that pops, usually created by kids listening to the pidgin.
I guess it happened again, so it's reproducable now and could be considered a "fact."
It's been years since I've read the above book. It's a classic in the field, but is probably long in the tooth by now.
Looks like Sun went out and redid their filesystem based on the performance characteristics of machines today, instead of machines of yesteryear.
Some highllights, for those that don't (or won't) RTA:
* Data integrity. Apparently it uses file checksums to error-correct files, so files will never be corrupted. About time someone did this.
* Snapshots, like netapp?
* Transactional nature/copy-on-write
* Auto-striping
* Really, Really Large volume support
All of this leads to speed and reliability. There's a lot of other stuff (varying blocks sizes, write queueing, stride stuff which I haven't heard about in years), but all of it leads to above.
Oh, and they simplified their admin too.
It's hard to make a filesystem look exciting. Most of the time it just works, until it fails. The data checksum stuff looks interesting, in that they built error correction into the FS (like CDs and RAID but better hopefully).
It might also do away with the idea of "space free on a volume," since the marketing implies that each FS grows/shrinks dynamically, pulling storage out of the pool as needed.
Any users want to chime in?
Yes, beer is very much better than running windows under linux? /obligatory
MacOS X does not require AltiVec. Next point?
I'd love to read his license agreement.
I agree! Nature's Miracle was the first thing I thought of too.
The best way to do this might be to get a spray bottle, and spray it (from maybe 1.5 feet away) towards the fan intakes. It might be worth it to fog the whole room, though I'm not sure what that'll entail.
This stuff really works.
I've noticed that people (including myself) who enjoy working under massive amounts of pressure don't work really well when there is no pressure at all. Go figure, huh?
I nominate the users! Without them, OSS would be nothing. They (we) have had to tramp through jungles of man pages, frozen tundra of bugs, the lack-of-support desert, and climb huge learning curves.
Hats off to OSS users and promoters!
Could they make it withstand, say, 50lbs of C4? A couple hundred pounds of TNT?
"Dude, where's my reactor?"
"You're breathing it."
Not a good idea, for security reasons.
With all the brainpower here, it's surprising that nobody's asked "why is Microsoft doing this?"
When iTMS came out, MS said explicitly that it wasn't going to get into the music download business. It's partners (or, I suppose, potential victims) already had large investments in online storefronts, and its other partners already sold WMA-enabled devices.
So why did MS decide to get into music?
I think the HP/Apple deal had something to do with it. One of MS' biggest customers went with another vendor (Apple). That must have galled MS. The PC side has device vendors and music stores, but there was no single-vendor solution. The WMA hardware vendors were probably complaining to Mama that MS wasn't helping them on the software side.
And when you look at it, how stable is are the WMA-based music stores? Real? Napster? Wal-Mart? Any of them could flake out at any moment, deciding that the business wasn't good enough. None of them are stable enough for a real long-term partnership.
By providing an MS music store, MS removes one barrier to WMA-based music stores: vendor instability. It supports the WMA-licensees. It opens up licensing opportunities.
Note there's no consumer benefit here, really.
The question is will MS be able to run this afterthought storefront?
iTMS is about the iPod, not Apple. People use iTMS because it's easy and nice to use, and it works with their pod. MS Music is about...hardware vendor support?
It'll be interesting to see how long MS Music lasts, and more interesting to see who the first few licensees will be.
You'd think that all this stuff (wi-fi, video) could be plug-ons for the iPod, much like the Media Reader and microphone.
Why burden the base unit down with this stuff when you can blast it to a plug-on? As long as the firmware supports it, of course.
Whoa, this guy doesn't write real software. He's a scripter, like a high-end VB guy.
Is google an advertising channel or a search engine? Right now the advertising channel only exists because of the search engine, and the channel is what's making them money.
How does google make its advertising independent of its search?
How do you broaden search to make it more useful?
What kinds of things are people searching for?
What's happening to their enterprise search business?
When businesses want information, how do they get it?
I'd expect them to buy doubleclick as their first acquisition.
If you can't understand something enough to put it into words, you don't understand it well enough. Everybody that is at the top of their field can explain what they're doing and/or thinking. You might not be able to understand what they're saying, but they know (and can say) exactly what they're doing at any given time.
That includes artists, btw.
If you can't articulate, you're just not good enough. Try harder.
And look what impact that has had on people's personal lives.