Maybe you don't plan more than 24 hours ahead, but the majority of who make our current society run the way it does do plan months and years in advance. Knowing who is going to be the next President as soon as possible makes a big difference. Take a look at how the stock market performed on the days when the Florida fiasco took place. There is a real reason the market reacted that way.
You've completely missed the point (as the two British responses to your post already explain). Paper ballots are more than adequate to have fast results, in a matter of hours, as many other countries have shown. Electronic voting could in theory give faster results -- maybe -- while risking invalidating the whole process because of security concerns. I'd much rather have a somewhat slower, but more secure, process -- much as the UK and Germany have.
The Florida example is just a classic case of a far too complicated system. Had Florida just had plain vanilla paper ballots, the whole hanging chad bit would never have happened, nor would the whole argument about "what's a valid ballot" taken place, nor would there have been any argument about the butterfly ballots being too confusing (just put your X in the big circle next to the guy's name, for Chrissakes).
Simple paper ballots are just that -- simple. Hard to get any simpler (so much for one argument for electronic voting). Hard to forge large-scale and thus more secure. And can be counted quite quickly without much apparatus (and immune to power failures and computer hackers and hard drive crashes). So why use electronic voting at all?
I for one would love a voting system with almost immediate feedback. It should be trivial to have elections and polls any time. That way we could reduce the power of congress and the president and put government back into the hands of the people.
Is that really a good thing? Think about it -- pretty soon you'd have mob rule.
Remember that the Founding Fathers quite deliberately put in mechanisms to prevent too much power getting into the people's hands (cf. the Electoral College, the Senate, etc.). They didn't want a despot, but they didn't want a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (to use a later term) either.
California is also doing a bang-up job of showing what can go wrong in a "direct" democracy...
And I still ask -- what's the rush? We have long waiting periods until people take office anyway (much longer than in, say, Germany or the UK, where power transfers take place almost overnight), and even with paper ballots it should be quite possible to have the results in a matter of hours. Where's the need for electronic voting?
What? You're still there after all the "freedom fries" crap?;-)
That's not really the case for France. Each candidate is represented by one paper card and only one (or zero) card can be inserted in the voting envelope. If the paper is altered in any way, the vote is invalid. Nothing in the envelope means that you abstained from voting but your vote is still counted and doen so independently of the invalid votes (altered card).
Ah, the system must have changed, I presume -- some French people I talked to a couple of years ago (after the 2000 election) made it sound like the French system was pretty much like that in Germany (just cross off one circle under each section of the ballot). Or was it always the way you describe?
Still, the French system is a paper-based system and appears to work just fine and dandy...why we Merkuns insist on bells and whistles, I don't know.
I really don't understand why voting should be electronic -- it is far more open to large-scale abuse than paper (pretty hard to convincingly fake millions of votes on paper, damn easy to change a block of data).
Speed in counting? Who needs it? It's not like the offcials take office the day after the election anyway -- hell, the President has to wait two and a half frickin' months. Why the rush to have an instantly-countable system?
Furthermore, in many other large-ish countries (such as France, the UK and Germany), voting is still done by making a big honkin' X on a circle next to the name of the guy you want. And no, it's not a bubble form that has to be filled in just right -- just make your damn X as sloppy as you please. No hanging chads, no network to hack, no problems reading it. And they still have the results in by the morning in time for the early papers.
The box is nearly identical to the one my parents have (a 1950s edition also available at eBay is in fact identical), so I guess it's older than I thought.
This game Gettysburg sounds a lot like miniature games (like Warhammer) in terms of movement.
It's been a while since I played Warhammer, but from what I remember of Warhammer the comparison to the original Gettysburg is fairly accurate.
The original Avalon Hill Gettysburg (ISTR that my parents' copy was from the early 1970s or late 1960s) basically had a flat map of the Gettysburg area, with roads and topographical features marked (e.g. Seminary Hill, Little and Big Round Top, etc.). The various units were cardboard tokens, with varying sizes depending on the type of unit (HQ, supply depot, outpost, infantry, cavalry, artillery) and numbers to indicate size and strength.
One minor drawback was that units could only be knocked backwards or eliminated entirely, rather than suffer casualties. Another drawback was that you kind of had to guesstimate the terrain, since units on ridges of course had an advantage, but there was often some room for debate as to whether a unit really was on a ridge or not.
Then there was the order of battle: turns were by hours, with units appearing at certain spots at certain times of the three days of the battle. So the Confederates started only with Heth's Division, while the Union started with two artillery divisions (or was it cavalry? my memory fails me). If I remember correctly, infantry could move two inches per turn, cavalry and HQs six, artillery three; each unit could also "spin" at a cost of an inch (since relative angles also affected combat -- flanking other units was the main point of the strategy).
All in all it was an interesting system; I can understand why later versions of the game went with the now-standard hexmap system, since the problems of movement, flanking and terrain were solved at a stroke. But the fluidity of the game suffered as a result IMO.
You might be able to find the game on eBay, if you're interested.
Everyone's played monopoly (which is a lousy game), but who here has even heard of Puerto Rico or Settlers of Catan which are two of the best games on the market now.
Personally I always thought one of the best board games was King Maker from Avalon Hill. I still have a rather old copy. Unfortunately I tended to win a lot (strange how no one figures out that you just seize Henry VI and London right at the beginning and watch everyone else crumble) and couldn't find any playing partners anymore. *sigh*
For battlefield games, the original Gettysburg game from Avalon Hill was also awesome IMO -- there was in effect no grid at all, but you used a ruler to move the pieces a set number of inches and you measured their relative positions and angles to get the multipliers for defense and attack. Rather complicated by today's standards, but also more realistic in many ways. (Hexmaps were a later invention that made gameplay a lot easier, but at the same time a little more restricted.)
Another great game was Supremacy, sort of like Risk, but with nukes, markets, money, navies and whatnot added to the mix. That was *hugely* addicting, especially with the added card packs (for warlords, special weapons, etc.) -- and oddly it was the only game I have ever played where the players always got pissed at each other. For some reason people took it a lot more seriously -- the same group of guys who would merrily conquer each other in Risk and joke the whole time would hardly be on speaking terms after a round of Supremacy.
And, of course, there's always Trivial Pursuit. Unfortunately the wife insisted on getting the German version to even the odds a little, so I get boned on the sports questions (how the hell should *I* know who won the Bundesliga cup in 1972?! -- always makes me think of the World Forum sketch in Monty Python...). And Entertainment was never my strong suit to begin with... *sigh*
As a long time 1942 fan (I can spend about an hour with 1 credit, longer on Galaga)
Heh -- I remember playing 1942 and just going...and going...and going. I think my record was something like 90 minutes on one quarter. I finally gave up because I had to take a leak and my arm was cramping like hell. After that I didn't play as much -- no real challenge anymore (and the guy at the 7-11 where I played got PO'd because I was hogging the machine).
I often wondered how much 1942 actually made money-wise, because the game was so ridiculously easy -- I know a number of people who could practically go on forever, once they got used to the patterns. It really was more a matter of endurance rather than skill...Pac-Man probably made a lot more per machine, because most people got killed after level three or so. 1942, they'd be one there for a half an hour or more on one quarter.
As an aside: oddly the Pac-Macs with speed mods were better for me than the "slow" normal version. Never did understand quite why, but I'd do far better with the game sped up. Sadly, I rarely saw ones with the mod... *sigh*
I too remember fondly games like Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Tetris, Battlezone, even good ole Space Invaders as being horrendously addicting. (Though I always had problems with Missile Command because I kept getting my fingers pinched by the rollerball...)
An arcade that I went to in those days, back in the early 80s, offered free quarters for good grades. And in those days I got straight As. Then we moved to a new area with no such arcade, and my grades plummeted. Coincidence?;-)
But there are good games today as well. Madden 200x, the Myst series, the Civilization series, Tekken, Myth, and so on are all great games for me (though Myth and Civ are admittedly a little complicated for the average person and not really mainstream). True, these are a lot more complex than, say, Pac-Man, but still very playable and fun.
There are plenty of really sucky games as well -- further evidence that quantity does not mean quality. I've never understood the hoopla about Final Fantasy -- I got FF X and was thoroughly bored by it. Onimusha Warlords was gorgeous, but lousy gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 2 was just atrocious IMO. Most fight games like Mortal Kombat also got to be *way* too complex (who the hell remembers all the special moves?) -- Tekken isn't as bad as MK in this regard IMO, but getting there.
At the same time, there were plenty 1980s-era arcade games that stunk, as well as plenty of console games as well -- Haunted House for the Atari 2600, anyone?
So I think the overall proportion of good to bad is more or less the same, just that the sheer number of games these days makes the mind boggle with all the crap that comes out. But once in a while a real gem comes out -- Oni, Myst, Civ, etc. -- that more than outweighs the stinkers -- Darkseed, ST:TNG "A Final Unity", Daikatana, etc.
(Though I still like to play little whippersnappers on the PS2 in stores or at the CeBIT and clobber them...they see this 30ish guy and think "I'm gonna kick his ass", then I open up a can o' whoopass on them. Ah, those days in the arcades paid off after all...:-) )
As to the article: I'd say the byline should be "from the no-shit dept."...
Hmmm, let's see. $12 per person. ~6 billion people on the planet.
Quick -- everyone in the world move to Florida and joint the suit! Microsoft gets slammed with $72 billion in payouts! Muahahahahaha...
Sad thing is, with a population of ~16.5 million, even if every man, woman and child in Florida were to do this (regardless of the legalities -- c'mon, I'm fantasizing here), we're still only talkin' $198 million -- much less than Microsoft's operating profit in 2002...(something like $250 million or so).
*sigh* There goes my evil plan for All Your Office Are Belong To Us.
A billion here, a billion there, and soon you're talking real money. *g*
Yes and no. You'll note that in the recent FCC decision that sought to allow expanded ownership of TV stations, it was the Democrats who voted No.
You'll notice that not a single Republican voted against the DMCA, and precious view against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
All true. But you will also notice that the Democrats are hardly blame-free in all of this. Sen. Fritz Hollings (a Democrat) was one of the main offenders in the whole debate (though of course Sen. Orrin Hatch is as well).
Like I said, on balance I tend to favor the Democrats (in spite of a number of things). Read my journal if you don't think that's true. But the article seemed to be pinning the blame for things like the DMCA squarely on the Republicans and "conservatives" (whatever that means), which is flatly wrong IMO.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Re:In defense of "conservatives"...
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 1
If you think Jefferson (or any of the Founding Fathers or classical liberals) were pacifists who believed in gun control, you are sadly misinformed.
Where did I say that he did? Where did I say that I did?
Cheers,
Ethelred
In defense of "conservatives"...
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
...while I'm more or less a liberal (in the old-style Jeffersonian or European sense) and nearly always vote for Democrats, this particular comment struck me as unfair to conservatives and their ilk:
The other [factor] is the high regard political conservatives hold for successful enterprises. Combine the two, and you get conservatives eagerly rewarding companies whose primary achievements consist of successful long-term adaptation to highly regulated environments. That's what's happened with broadcasting and telecom.
Lest we forget, it is actually the Democratic Party that is more in the pocket of Hollywood and the media companies, while the Republican Party tends to favor "big business" in general. Both parties have their share of guilt in all this mess. The DMCA was passed with bipartisan (i.e. substantial Democratic) support and was signed into law by a Democrat (Clinton). Trial and IP lawyers also tend to support the Democrats (cf. John Edwards). (Over-)deregulation of the media and telecoms industries took place largely during the Clinton Administration (though it started in the first Bush Administration).
I seriously doubt that Howard Dean is any angel on this, either. He's just as much a politician as any other. His rhetoric about being from the "Democractic wing of the Democratic Party" is a little ironic, given that he's against gun control, is hardly a pacifist (he supported Gulf War I and interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo), etc. etc. etc. I don't see him as being a liberal at all (neither in the modern "leftist" sense nor in the older Jeffersonian sense), but an opportunist like any other.
FWIW given my own political positions I'll probably be voting for "anything but Dubya", but I dislike the idolizing that Dean has been benefitting from of late. And I also dislike disingenuous attacks on one party or the other...
Graphics artists. A lot of graphics artists see it all as making art. They don't know, nor care, about usability of that site, or about the visitors' need to get to the actual information, or such. They want their work of art reproduced as such at all cost, regardless of how much their favourite colours offend the eye, their font is unreadable, and that funky illogical page arrangement leaves the user disoriented and confused.
In defense of graphic designers (since I am one): graphic designers are normally trained to understand that good print or web design normally means legibility and ease of use. (I say "normally" because there are always exceptions.)
Yes, there are bad designers out there -- lots of 'em. There are also lots of bad programmers and developers and PHBs. You can't tar all designers (or programmers or for that matter PHBs) with the same brush.
I would also bet that sites that do have trained designers will, by and large, be better and clearer than sites done by someone with no design training. Same goes for UI design -- a designer can be a lot of help in making good icons and suggestions for ease of use. Unfortunately, it often seems that everyone thinks they're a designer, or that design is easy (I'm tired of people telling me "Hey, I'm good at Photoshop, too!", as if that means anything). So many sites don't have honest-to-God designers, or they take just anyone they get their hands on (and pay accordingly).
I generally try to do sites pretty much as you describe -- have a clear and easy-to-use navigation, and legible fonts (on all platforms -- Windows, Mac and UNIX/Linux) without too much cruft. And have the pages be scalable so that they work on pretty much any monitor (though getting sites to look good on, say, a 22" monitor and on a handheld is damned near impossible under most circumstances...). And have the sites be compatible with as many browsers as possible, without plugins (unless there is no way around using them -- sometimes Flash or QuickTime does make sense on a site).
Sometimes, though, sites I work on just don't work out because of unrealistic expectations on the part of the client -- sometimes clients insist on having things (or not having things) regardless of how senseless they might be. And at the end of the day, the customer is always right...
There are some groups in Germany (like the Verein Deutscher Sprache) who also want to ban and replace Anglicisms in German, such as:
das Internet -> das Zwischennetz
die E-Mail -> die E-Post
der Computer -> der Rechner (or "das EDV-Gerät")
FAQ -> OgF ("Oft-gestellte Fragen")
surfen -> navigieren
I do have to say that the fashion for Anglicisms in Germany has gotten a little extreme at times, replacing existing (and perfectly usable) German words...
Plenty of money- and computer-related English words have become very common in the last few years: "der Manager", "das Business", "Cash", "Airport" and so on (instead of "der Verwalter", "das Geschäft", "das Bargeld", "der Flughafen" respectively).
It's becoming more common to say "die City" instead of "die Stadt" as well. Then there is "das Weekend-Feeling", "das Weekend", "grillen" (to grill), "shoppen" (to shop) and so on. "Live" in the sense of "live broadcast" is also frequently seen on TV. "Chicken" is occasionally seen instead of "Hähnchen", and "Roastbeef" has pretty much obliterated "Rinderbraten"; sometimes the British "chips" or American "fries" are used instead of the old Francophone "Pommes frites". "Okay" is also quite common in everyday life; so is "Hi".
To go on: a cellphone is "das Handy" (go figure), the word "TV" is starting to replace "der Fernseher", the verb "fighten" is often used instead of the German verb "kämpfen" (though a German footballer actually said "wir haben gefightet und gekämpft" as if they meant different things). Deutsche Telekom also started naming their price plans in English ("GermanCall", "CityCall"), while their rival o.tel.o used the slogan "For a better understanding" (sic).
Some words have been "eingedeutscht" ("Germanized") by changing the spelling to match German spelling conventions: "tip" is now "der Tipp", for example.
Many Germans have the somewhat irritating habit of peppering their sentences with as many English words as possible (like ending them with "you know" instead of "nicht wahr").
The present invasion of English words seems to be far greater than the last invasion: in the 18th and 19th centuries German borrowed mostly from French, which was the fashionable language at the time. "Das Büffet" (buffet), "der Frisör" (hairdresser), "Portemonnaie" (wallet) and so on are all borrowings from French. (Sometimes you get hybrids like "Filetsteak" as well.) But to my knowledge, very few French words have been borrowed in recent years -- it's almost entirely English that has worked its way into the language. And the overall number of English words seems to be far greater than the number of French words as well.
Part of the reason for Germans adopting so many Anglicisms may simply be that English is, as a rule, more flexible about using words in new ways or creating new (but short) words. German speakers in my experience have a hard time with wordplay or creating new words or phrases in German (German editors tend to be especially picky about that), but they seem to feel freer to do that with English words and get away with it.
But I agree that it's overkill trying to dictate to people how they should speak beyond the basic ground rules of grammar as the French are trying to do. Thus far there hasn't been a serious effort to purge German of Anglicisms -- on balance a good thing IMO. But it is a pity that German seems to be going the way of the dodo if current trends keep going as they are.
...is that the rulin states that if the owner of a web site wants to prevent deep linking, it may feel free to use technical measures to prevent it. (That could be as simple as using the referrer= tag.) It goes on to state that circumventing technical measures designed to prevent deep-linking very well may be illegal (and that they'd rule on that if and when it comes up.)
Which in a way is sensible enough -- if someone really really really doesn't want people to link to individual pages in their site, as copyright holders in a sense it is their right to do so. It's their content and their site. I find it to be idiotic to do that, but if someone is dumb enough to do it that way, well, whatever. I'll just go elsewhere.
Note that preventing deep linking wouldn't keep you from accessing the content -- just adds a (idiotic and unneeded, but still "legal") hurdle that can be overcome by clicking through the site, and you can just copy the text from your browser. BFD. If they want to be idiots, there's no one forcing you to read their site. Go somewhere where they understand what the Web is for instead.
Like others have pointed out, deep linking is actually a great way to get eyeballs onto your site -- people otherwise might not visit it to begin with. Who knows? That one deep link might let Joe User know your site even exists and has content he finds interesting, and so they keep coming back for more. Why make them hunt for the content?
Ah, well. You can't stop site owners from being stupid...
The attitude of Handelsblatt unfortunately does not seem to be that unusual, at least not in Germany. I remember having to work with a large marketing and design agency on a web project (the small agency I was working for was doing the website, the other agency -- the biggest in our area -- did the print marketing and was trying to also lecture us on how to do the site).
First they criticized the fact that we had a full navigation on every page of the site -- in their view people should page through the site like a magazine.
Secondly they wanted to force people to start at the homepage and work from there.
They apparently thought of websites as being literally just a form of magazine or book -- you start at the beginning and page through to the end. I remember arguing with them vociferously that that was wrong, since it threw away all the advantages of the Web (I said it was akin to putting a radio ad on TV with no video) and also explained the principle of deep linking -- to which they reacted with horror and practically demanded we block deep linking, by lawsuits if necessary (WTF?).
Given that the client's site was for a major German utility company with loads of info for customers, deep linking made all the sense in the world -- much more so than many other sites (since news sites, etc. would link directly to pages with promotions and so on).
In the end we carried the day by arguing our position with the client's marketing director (who seemed to "get it" in general, even if he had some bizarre suggestions, like doing the entire ~1000-page site in Flash -- thank God we didn't do that).
OTOH that other agency was also pretty damned clueless about a lot of other things -- proof that large agencies often aren't large because of the quality of their work, but just because the PHBs have all the right connections. *sigh*
...to pick up these things in my hand, make them fly around and make guttural "thruster" and rocket noises involving lots of spittle gurgling at the back of my throat. (My spittle, that is. Not someone else's.) And "teeeeuuuw teeeuww" laser noises.
And have them blow stuff up (imaginatively, of course).
Here is a literal translation of the original German lyrics:
If you have a little time for me
Then I'll sing a song for you
about 99 balloons
on their way to the horizon
If you're just thinking of me
then I'll sing a song for you
about 99 balloons
and how one thing leads to another.
99 balloons
on their way to the horizon
were thought to be UFOs from space
so a general sent
a fighter squadron after them
To sound the alarm if it was true
But on the horizon were
only 99 balloons.
99 fighter jets
each one was a great warrior
thought they were Captain Kirk
That made for a big fireworks.
The neighbors didn't get it
and soon felt provoked
so they shot at the horizon
at 99 balloons.
99 war ministers,
matches and gas,
thought they were clever
and scented fat prey.
Called out "War" and wanted power.
Man, who would have thought
that it would get that far,
because of 99 balloons.
99 years of war
left no room for victors
there are no more war ministers
and no jets either.
Today I'm doing my rounds
and see the world in ruins.
Found a balloon,
I think of you and let it go.
Personally I always thought the German version was better -- the words fit the melody better and the song makes a little more sense (well, duh, it was written in German). The only drawback is that the original doesn't say "red balloons" ("Luftballon" just means "balloon"), which is a more dramatic image to me.
The song, though a little cheesy, captured the way a lot of people in Germany felt in the 1980s about the Cold War. Very pessimistic and almost resigned to their fate somehow.
BTW Nena wasn't a "one-hit wonder" per se. She is still a star in Germany. 99 Red Balloons was her one hit that made it outside of Germany, that's true. Though OTOH lately she seems to need money, since she's been showing up in all kinds of TV ads for, um, rather odd stuff that you wouldn't normally associate with rock stars. (Like laundry detergent. And an el-cheapo shoe store chain.)
She also has been releasing remakes of her songs, like "Leuchtturm" (Lighthouse) that aren't half bad IMO. (FWIW "Leuchtturm" was also on the album "99 Luftballons".)
Scary thing: when I first came to Germany, I would often start singing "99 Luftballons" in German to my German friends to annoy the hell out of them. They were simultaneously impressed and disgusted. (These days most Germans think the song is such a cliché as to be painful.);-)
Maybe Minnesota could bring back Jesse Ventura as governor. Y'know, because Minnesotans used to have T-shirts and bumper stickers saying "My governor can kick your governor's ass!". Well, Californians can't leave that be, can they?
It would certainly make for an interesting match -- at the WWF Arena, the Gubernatorial Smackdown: Arnie vs. Jesse! Minnesota battles California for supremacy!
The winner would get to be governor of both states and take all the women of the losing state as a private harem. OTOH if Jesse were to lose, well, Minnesota has ICBMs.
Hey, they were even in Predator together...though Ventura *definitely* had the cooler weapon.;-)
Cheers,
Ethelred
PS: Sorry, my geek imagination went a little wild there...I have myself better under control now. Really!
What the hell are you working on that requires 1200 frickin' dpi?!?!?
Usually illustrations or photo collages, which are later shrunk down to a lower resolution. Collages usually look better in the final version if you work in a higher resolution while composing them and shrink them later. (It's the same principle as cartoonists or illustrators with pen and ink -- they almost always work at many times the size of the final image, then shrink it down.)
Because the same images are often later used for a large variety of things, from packaging to magazine ads to corporate reports and so on, I need to have them in a big size so that I can shrink them later. You can't scale up without significant quality loss.
Also note that I don't *always* work in 1200 dpi. Usually 300 dpi is more than enough. For posters, 144 dpi is usually more than enough. But once in a while I do have a job where such high-end stuff is needed.
And a real prepress house uses a ColorSync RGB workflow. CMYK is generated for proofing and final files out the door only.
I don't do prepress, I do design (though that line is getting increasingly blurred). And I work in CMYK deliberately, because it happens all too often that RGB files accidentally get sent to the RIP and come out totally wrong, which in these days of direct-to-plate can be very costly. Which means a print run is ruined and I'm left taking the blame (even if only partially).
No designer I know works in RGB for print work, at least not intentionally.
Do youself a favor and get a couple fast drives. There's nothing like waiting for pshop's swap, but w/ fast drives who needs 1.5gb of ram? I don't. (even using cmyk @ insane 1200 dpi).
No drive, no matter how fast, is going to be as fast as RAM. Buying RAM is a much better bang-for-your-buck investment if you want speed.
And yes, I have three UltraATA-100 drives with an UltraATA-100 card. (UltraATA is again a better bang-for-your-buck solution than other alternatives.) One of those drives does nothing but swap and backup of important data to avoid fragmentation of the other two.
(As an aside, 1200 dpi is hardly "insane". That's what you have to use for high-end printing jobs. It's no more "insane" than doing uncompressed audio or video at high bitrates for mastering.)
450mhz? Nevermind that you could have droped a grand and gotten a much faster PC for a long time.
Nevermind that at the time I bought the dual G4, the differential in terms of speed between Macs and PCs in the same class was negligible.
Nevermind that changing from a Mac to a PC would mean having to re-purchase something like >$10K worth of software (Photoshop, Freehand, Dreamweaver, Acrobat Distiller, Flash, MS Office, numerous fonts, etc. etc. etc., plus QuarkXPress if I decided to keep using it).
Slashdot Mirror
You've completely missed the point (as the two British responses to your post already explain). Paper ballots are more than adequate to have fast results, in a matter of hours, as many other countries have shown. Electronic voting could in theory give faster results -- maybe -- while risking invalidating the whole process because of security concerns. I'd much rather have a somewhat slower, but more secure, process -- much as the UK and Germany have.
The Florida example is just a classic case of a far too complicated system. Had Florida just had plain vanilla paper ballots, the whole hanging chad bit would never have happened, nor would the whole argument about "what's a valid ballot" taken place, nor would there have been any argument about the butterfly ballots being too confusing (just put your X in the big circle next to the guy's name, for Chrissakes).
Simple paper ballots are just that -- simple. Hard to get any simpler (so much for one argument for electronic voting). Hard to forge large-scale and thus more secure. And can be counted quite quickly without much apparatus (and immune to power failures and computer hackers and hard drive crashes). So why use electronic voting at all?
Cheers,
Ethelred
Is that really a good thing? Think about it -- pretty soon you'd have mob rule.
Remember that the Founding Fathers quite deliberately put in mechanisms to prevent too much power getting into the people's hands (cf. the Electoral College, the Senate, etc.). They didn't want a despot, but they didn't want a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (to use a later term) either.
California is also doing a bang-up job of showing what can go wrong in a "direct" democracy...
And I still ask -- what's the rush? We have long waiting periods until people take office anyway (much longer than in, say, Germany or the UK, where power transfers take place almost overnight), and even with paper ballots it should be quite possible to have the results in a matter of hours. Where's the need for electronic voting?
Cheers,
Ethelred
as a French living in the US
What? You're still there after all the "freedom fries" crap? ;-)
That's not really the case for France. Each candidate is represented by one paper card and only one (or zero) card can be inserted in the voting envelope. If the paper is altered in any way, the vote is invalid. Nothing in the envelope means that you abstained from voting but your vote is still counted and doen so independently of the invalid votes (altered card).
Ah, the system must have changed, I presume -- some French people I talked to a couple of years ago (after the 2000 election) made it sound like the French system was pretty much like that in Germany (just cross off one circle under each section of the ballot). Or was it always the way you describe?
Still, the French system is a paper-based system and appears to work just fine and dandy...why we Merkuns insist on bells and whistles, I don't know.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Speed in counting? Who needs it? It's not like the offcials take office the day after the election anyway -- hell, the President has to wait two and a half frickin' months. Why the rush to have an instantly-countable system?
Furthermore, in many other large-ish countries (such as France, the UK and Germany), voting is still done by making a big honkin' X on a circle next to the name of the guy you want. And no, it's not a bubble form that has to be filled in just right -- just make your damn X as sloppy as you please. No hanging chads, no network to hack, no problems reading it. And they still have the results in by the morning in time for the early papers.
So why have electronic voting again?
Cheers,
Ethelred
Sorry to respond twice, but for the hell of it I just did a search at eBay, and sure enough, someone is selling a copy:
Gettysburg 1964 edition for sale
The box is nearly identical to the one my parents have (a 1950s edition also available at eBay is in fact identical), so I guess it's older than I thought.
Cheers,
Ethelred
It's been a while since I played Warhammer, but from what I remember of Warhammer the comparison to the original Gettysburg is fairly accurate.
The original Avalon Hill Gettysburg (ISTR that my parents' copy was from the early 1970s or late 1960s) basically had a flat map of the Gettysburg area, with roads and topographical features marked (e.g. Seminary Hill, Little and Big Round Top, etc.). The various units were cardboard tokens, with varying sizes depending on the type of unit (HQ, supply depot, outpost, infantry, cavalry, artillery) and numbers to indicate size and strength.
One minor drawback was that units could only be knocked backwards or eliminated entirely, rather than suffer casualties. Another drawback was that you kind of had to guesstimate the terrain, since units on ridges of course had an advantage, but there was often some room for debate as to whether a unit really was on a ridge or not.
Then there was the order of battle: turns were by hours, with units appearing at certain spots at certain times of the three days of the battle. So the Confederates started only with Heth's Division, while the Union started with two artillery divisions (or was it cavalry? my memory fails me). If I remember correctly, infantry could move two inches per turn, cavalry and HQs six, artillery three; each unit could also "spin" at a cost of an inch (since relative angles also affected combat -- flanking other units was the main point of the strategy).
All in all it was an interesting system; I can understand why later versions of the game went with the now-standard hexmap system, since the problems of movement, flanking and terrain were solved at a stroke. But the fluidity of the game suffered as a result IMO.
You might be able to find the game on eBay, if you're interested.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Did you try Oni? I personally loved the game, and it sounds like it would meet your wishes.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Personally I always thought one of the best board games was King Maker from Avalon Hill. I still have a rather old copy. Unfortunately I tended to win a lot (strange how no one figures out that you just seize Henry VI and London right at the beginning and watch everyone else crumble) and couldn't find any playing partners anymore. *sigh*
For battlefield games, the original Gettysburg game from Avalon Hill was also awesome IMO -- there was in effect no grid at all, but you used a ruler to move the pieces a set number of inches and you measured their relative positions and angles to get the multipliers for defense and attack. Rather complicated by today's standards, but also more realistic in many ways. (Hexmaps were a later invention that made gameplay a lot easier, but at the same time a little more restricted.)
Another great game was Supremacy, sort of like Risk, but with nukes, markets, money, navies and whatnot added to the mix. That was *hugely* addicting, especially with the added card packs (for warlords, special weapons, etc.) -- and oddly it was the only game I have ever played where the players always got pissed at each other. For some reason people took it a lot more seriously -- the same group of guys who would merrily conquer each other in Risk and joke the whole time would hardly be on speaking terms after a round of Supremacy.
And, of course, there's always Trivial Pursuit. Unfortunately the wife insisted on getting the German version to even the odds a little, so I get boned on the sports questions (how the hell should *I* know who won the Bundesliga cup in 1972?! -- always makes me think of the World Forum sketch in Monty Python...). And Entertainment was never my strong suit to begin with... *sigh*
Cheers,
Ethelred
Heh -- I remember playing 1942 and just going...and going...and going. I think my record was something like 90 minutes on one quarter. I finally gave up because I had to take a leak and my arm was cramping like hell. After that I didn't play as much -- no real challenge anymore (and the guy at the 7-11 where I played got PO'd because I was hogging the machine).
I often wondered how much 1942 actually made money-wise, because the game was so ridiculously easy -- I know a number of people who could practically go on forever, once they got used to the patterns. It really was more a matter of endurance rather than skill...Pac-Man probably made a lot more per machine, because most people got killed after level three or so. 1942, they'd be one there for a half an hour or more on one quarter.
As an aside: oddly the Pac-Macs with speed mods were better for me than the "slow" normal version. Never did understand quite why, but I'd do far better with the game sped up. Sadly, I rarely saw ones with the mod... *sigh*
Cheers,
Ethelred
An arcade that I went to in those days, back in the early 80s, offered free quarters for good grades. And in those days I got straight As. Then we moved to a new area with no such arcade, and my grades plummeted. Coincidence? ;-)
But there are good games today as well. Madden 200x, the Myst series, the Civilization series, Tekken, Myth, and so on are all great games for me (though Myth and Civ are admittedly a little complicated for the average person and not really mainstream). True, these are a lot more complex than, say, Pac-Man, but still very playable and fun.
There are plenty of really sucky games as well -- further evidence that quantity does not mean quality. I've never understood the hoopla about Final Fantasy -- I got FF X and was thoroughly bored by it. Onimusha Warlords was gorgeous, but lousy gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 2 was just atrocious IMO. Most fight games like Mortal Kombat also got to be *way* too complex (who the hell remembers all the special moves?) -- Tekken isn't as bad as MK in this regard IMO, but getting there.
At the same time, there were plenty 1980s-era arcade games that stunk, as well as plenty of console games as well -- Haunted House for the Atari 2600, anyone?
So I think the overall proportion of good to bad is more or less the same, just that the sheer number of games these days makes the mind boggle with all the crap that comes out. But once in a while a real gem comes out -- Oni, Myst, Civ, etc. -- that more than outweighs the stinkers -- Darkseed, ST:TNG "A Final Unity", Daikatana, etc.
(Though I still like to play little whippersnappers on the PS2 in stores or at the CeBIT and clobber them...they see this 30ish guy and think "I'm gonna kick his ass", then I open up a can o' whoopass on them. Ah, those days in the arcades paid off after all... :-) )
As to the article: I'd say the byline should be "from the no-shit dept."...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Quick -- everyone in the world move to Florida and joint the suit! Microsoft gets slammed with $72 billion in payouts! Muahahahahaha...
Sad thing is, with a population of ~16.5 million, even if every man, woman and child in Florida were to do this (regardless of the legalities -- c'mon, I'm fantasizing here), we're still only talkin' $198 million -- much less than Microsoft's operating profit in 2002...(something like $250 million or so).
*sigh* There goes my evil plan for All Your Office Are Belong To Us.
A billion here, a billion there, and soon you're talking real money. *g*
Cheers,
Ethelred
You will note that I did not say that I agreed with the "modern" idea of "liberal", which is what Dean is effectively claiming to be.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Yes and no. You'll note that in the recent FCC decision that sought to allow expanded ownership of TV stations, it was the Democrats who voted No. You'll notice that not a single Republican voted against the DMCA, and precious view against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
All true. But you will also notice that the Democrats are hardly blame-free in all of this. Sen. Fritz Hollings (a Democrat) was one of the main offenders in the whole debate (though of course Sen. Orrin Hatch is as well).
Like I said, on balance I tend to favor the Democrats (in spite of a number of things). Read my journal if you don't think that's true. But the article seemed to be pinning the blame for things like the DMCA squarely on the Republicans and "conservatives" (whatever that means), which is flatly wrong IMO.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Where did I say that he did? Where did I say that I did?
Cheers,
Ethelred
The other [factor] is the high regard political conservatives hold for successful enterprises. Combine the two, and you get conservatives eagerly rewarding companies whose primary achievements consist of successful long-term adaptation to highly regulated environments. That's what's happened with broadcasting and telecom.
Lest we forget, it is actually the Democratic Party that is more in the pocket of Hollywood and the media companies, while the Republican Party tends to favor "big business" in general. Both parties have their share of guilt in all this mess. The DMCA was passed with bipartisan (i.e. substantial Democratic) support and was signed into law by a Democrat (Clinton). Trial and IP lawyers also tend to support the Democrats (cf. John Edwards). (Over-)deregulation of the media and telecoms industries took place largely during the Clinton Administration (though it started in the first Bush Administration).
I seriously doubt that Howard Dean is any angel on this, either. He's just as much a politician as any other. His rhetoric about being from the "Democractic wing of the Democratic Party" is a little ironic, given that he's against gun control, is hardly a pacifist (he supported Gulf War I and interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo), etc. etc. etc. I don't see him as being a liberal at all (neither in the modern "leftist" sense nor in the older Jeffersonian sense), but an opportunist like any other.
FWIW given my own political positions I'll probably be voting for "anything but Dubya", but I dislike the idolizing that Dean has been benefitting from of late. And I also dislike disingenuous attacks on one party or the other...
Cheers,
Ethelred
In defense of graphic designers (since I am one): graphic designers are normally trained to understand that good print or web design normally means legibility and ease of use. (I say "normally" because there are always exceptions.)
Yes, there are bad designers out there -- lots of 'em. There are also lots of bad programmers and developers and PHBs. You can't tar all designers (or programmers or for that matter PHBs) with the same brush.
I would also bet that sites that do have trained designers will, by and large, be better and clearer than sites done by someone with no design training. Same goes for UI design -- a designer can be a lot of help in making good icons and suggestions for ease of use. Unfortunately, it often seems that everyone thinks they're a designer, or that design is easy (I'm tired of people telling me "Hey, I'm good at Photoshop, too!", as if that means anything). So many sites don't have honest-to-God designers, or they take just anyone they get their hands on (and pay accordingly).
I generally try to do sites pretty much as you describe -- have a clear and easy-to-use navigation, and legible fonts (on all platforms -- Windows, Mac and UNIX/Linux) without too much cruft. And have the pages be scalable so that they work on pretty much any monitor (though getting sites to look good on, say, a 22" monitor and on a handheld is damned near impossible under most circumstances...). And have the sites be compatible with as many browsers as possible, without plugins (unless there is no way around using them -- sometimes Flash or QuickTime does make sense on a site).
Sometimes, though, sites I work on just don't work out because of unrealistic expectations on the part of the client -- sometimes clients insist on having things (or not having things) regardless of how senseless they might be. And at the end of the day, the customer is always right...
Cheers,
Ethelred
There are some groups in Germany (like the Verein Deutscher Sprache) who also want to ban and replace Anglicisms in German, such as:
I do have to say that the fashion for Anglicisms in Germany has gotten a little extreme at times, replacing existing (and perfectly usable) German words...
Plenty of money- and computer-related English words have become very common in the last few years: "der Manager", "das Business", "Cash", "Airport" and so on (instead of "der Verwalter", "das Geschäft", "das Bargeld", "der Flughafen" respectively).
It's becoming more common to say "die City" instead of "die Stadt" as well. Then there is "das Weekend-Feeling", "das Weekend", "grillen" (to grill), "shoppen" (to shop) and so on. "Live" in the sense of "live broadcast" is also frequently seen on TV. "Chicken" is occasionally seen instead of "Hähnchen", and "Roastbeef" has pretty much obliterated "Rinderbraten"; sometimes the British "chips" or American "fries" are used instead of the old Francophone "Pommes frites". "Okay" is also quite common in everyday life; so is "Hi".
To go on: a cellphone is "das Handy" (go figure), the word "TV" is starting to replace "der Fernseher", the verb "fighten" is often used instead of the German verb "kämpfen" (though a German footballer actually said "wir haben gefightet und gekämpft" as if they meant different things). Deutsche Telekom also started naming their price plans in English ("GermanCall", "CityCall"), while their rival o.tel.o used the slogan "For a better understanding" (sic).
Some words have been "eingedeutscht" ("Germanized") by changing the spelling to match German spelling conventions: "tip" is now "der Tipp", for example.
Many Germans have the somewhat irritating habit of peppering their sentences with as many English words as possible (like ending them with "you know" instead of "nicht wahr").
The present invasion of English words seems to be far greater than the last invasion: in the 18th and 19th centuries German borrowed mostly from French, which was the fashionable language at the time. "Das Büffet" (buffet), "der Frisör" (hairdresser), "Portemonnaie" (wallet) and so on are all borrowings from French. (Sometimes you get hybrids like "Filetsteak" as well.) But to my knowledge, very few French words have been borrowed in recent years -- it's almost entirely English that has worked its way into the language. And the overall number of English words seems to be far greater than the number of French words as well.
Part of the reason for Germans adopting so many Anglicisms may simply be that English is, as a rule, more flexible about using words in new ways or creating new (but short) words. German speakers in my experience have a hard time with wordplay or creating new words or phrases in German (German editors tend to be especially picky about that), but they seem to feel freer to do that with English words and get away with it.
But I agree that it's overkill trying to dictate to people how they should speak beyond the basic ground rules of grammar as the French are trying to do. Thus far there hasn't been a serious effort to purge German of Anglicisms -- on balance a good thing IMO. But it is a pity that German seems to be going the way of the dodo if current trends keep going as they are.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Which in a way is sensible enough -- if someone really really really doesn't want people to link to individual pages in their site, as copyright holders in a sense it is their right to do so. It's their content and their site. I find it to be idiotic to do that, but if someone is dumb enough to do it that way, well, whatever. I'll just go elsewhere.
Note that preventing deep linking wouldn't keep you from accessing the content -- just adds a (idiotic and unneeded, but still "legal") hurdle that can be overcome by clicking through the site, and you can just copy the text from your browser. BFD. If they want to be idiots, there's no one forcing you to read their site. Go somewhere where they understand what the Web is for instead.
Like others have pointed out, deep linking is actually a great way to get eyeballs onto your site -- people otherwise might not visit it to begin with. Who knows? That one deep link might let Joe User know your site even exists and has content he finds interesting, and so they keep coming back for more. Why make them hunt for the content?
Ah, well. You can't stop site owners from being stupid...
Cheers,
Ethelred
The attitude of Handelsblatt unfortunately does not seem to be that unusual, at least not in Germany. I remember having to work with a large marketing and design agency on a web project (the small agency I was working for was doing the website, the other agency -- the biggest in our area -- did the print marketing and was trying to also lecture us on how to do the site).
First they criticized the fact that we had a full navigation on every page of the site -- in their view people should page through the site like a magazine.
Secondly they wanted to force people to start at the homepage and work from there.
They apparently thought of websites as being literally just a form of magazine or book -- you start at the beginning and page through to the end. I remember arguing with them vociferously that that was wrong, since it threw away all the advantages of the Web (I said it was akin to putting a radio ad on TV with no video) and also explained the principle of deep linking -- to which they reacted with horror and practically demanded we block deep linking, by lawsuits if necessary (WTF?).
Given that the client's site was for a major German utility company with loads of info for customers, deep linking made all the sense in the world -- much more so than many other sites (since news sites, etc. would link directly to pages with promotions and so on).
In the end we carried the day by arguing our position with the client's marketing director (who seemed to "get it" in general, even if he had some bizarre suggestions, like doing the entire ~1000-page site in Flash -- thank God we didn't do that).
OTOH that other agency was also pretty damned clueless about a lot of other things -- proof that large agencies often aren't large because of the quality of their work, but just because the PHBs have all the right connections. *sigh*
Cheers,
Ethelred
And have them blow stuff up (imaginatively, of course).
Ah, to be a child again...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Here is a literal translation of the original German lyrics:
If you have a little time for me
Then I'll sing a song for you
about 99 balloons
on their way to the horizon
If you're just thinking of me
then I'll sing a song for you
about 99 balloons
and how one thing leads to another.
99 balloons
on their way to the horizon
were thought to be UFOs from space
so a general sent
a fighter squadron after them
To sound the alarm if it was true
But on the horizon were
only 99 balloons.
99 fighter jets
each one was a great warrior
thought they were Captain Kirk
That made for a big fireworks.
The neighbors didn't get it
and soon felt provoked
so they shot at the horizon
at 99 balloons.
99 war ministers,
matches and gas,
thought they were clever
and scented fat prey.
Called out "War" and wanted power.
Man, who would have thought
that it would get that far,
because of 99 balloons.
99 years of war
left no room for victors
there are no more war ministers
and no jets either.
Today I'm doing my rounds
and see the world in ruins.
Found a balloon,
I think of you and let it go.
Personally I always thought the German version was better -- the words fit the melody better and the song makes a little more sense (well, duh, it was written in German). The only drawback is that the original doesn't say "red balloons" ("Luftballon" just means "balloon"), which is a more dramatic image to me.
The song, though a little cheesy, captured the way a lot of people in Germany felt in the 1980s about the Cold War. Very pessimistic and almost resigned to their fate somehow.
BTW Nena wasn't a "one-hit wonder" per se. She is still a star in Germany. 99 Red Balloons was her one hit that made it outside of Germany, that's true. Though OTOH lately she seems to need money, since she's been showing up in all kinds of TV ads for, um, rather odd stuff that you wouldn't normally associate with rock stars. (Like laundry detergent. And an el-cheapo shoe store chain.)
She also has been releasing remakes of her songs, like "Leuchtturm" (Lighthouse) that aren't half bad IMO. (FWIW "Leuchtturm" was also on the album "99 Luftballons".)
Scary thing: when I first came to Germany, I would often start singing "99 Luftballons" in German to my German friends to annoy the hell out of them. They were simultaneously impressed and disgusted. (These days most Germans think the song is such a cliché as to be painful.) ;-)
Cheers,
Ethelred
It would certainly make for an interesting match -- at the WWF Arena, the Gubernatorial Smackdown: Arnie vs. Jesse! Minnesota battles California for supremacy!
The winner would get to be governor of both states and take all the women of the losing state as a private harem. OTOH if Jesse were to lose, well, Minnesota has ICBMs.
Hey, they were even in Predator together...though Ventura *definitely* had the cooler weapon. ;-)
Cheers,
Ethelred
PS: Sorry, my geek imagination went a little wild there...I have myself better under control now. Really!
What the hell are you working on that requires 1200 frickin' dpi?!?!?
Usually illustrations or photo collages, which are later shrunk down to a lower resolution. Collages usually look better in the final version if you work in a higher resolution while composing them and shrink them later. (It's the same principle as cartoonists or illustrators with pen and ink -- they almost always work at many times the size of the final image, then shrink it down.)
Because the same images are often later used for a large variety of things, from packaging to magazine ads to corporate reports and so on, I need to have them in a big size so that I can shrink them later. You can't scale up without significant quality loss.
Also note that I don't *always* work in 1200 dpi. Usually 300 dpi is more than enough. For posters, 144 dpi is usually more than enough. But once in a while I do have a job where such high-end stuff is needed.
And a real prepress house uses a ColorSync RGB workflow. CMYK is generated for proofing and final files out the door only.
I don't do prepress, I do design (though that line is getting increasingly blurred). And I work in CMYK deliberately, because it happens all too often that RGB files accidentally get sent to the RIP and come out totally wrong, which in these days of direct-to-plate can be very costly. Which means a print run is ruined and I'm left taking the blame (even if only partially).
No designer I know works in RGB for print work, at least not intentionally.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Do youself a favor and get a couple fast drives. There's nothing like waiting for pshop's swap, but w/ fast drives who needs 1.5gb of ram? I don't. (even using cmyk @ insane 1200 dpi).
No drive, no matter how fast, is going to be as fast as RAM. Buying RAM is a much better bang-for-your-buck investment if you want speed.
And yes, I have three UltraATA-100 drives with an UltraATA-100 card. (UltraATA is again a better bang-for-your-buck solution than other alternatives.) One of those drives does nothing but swap and backup of important data to avoid fragmentation of the other two.
(As an aside, 1200 dpi is hardly "insane". That's what you have to use for high-end printing jobs. It's no more "insane" than doing uncompressed audio or video at high bitrates for mastering.)
Cheers,
Ethelred
Nevermind that at the time I bought the dual G4, the differential in terms of speed between Macs and PCs in the same class was negligible.
Nevermind that changing from a Mac to a PC would mean having to re-purchase something like >$10K worth of software (Photoshop, Freehand, Dreamweaver, Acrobat Distiller, Flash, MS Office, numerous fonts, etc. etc. etc., plus QuarkXPress if I decided to keep using it).
Yup, that's some savings.
Cheers,
Ethelred