The bottom line is
I consider dual-licensing unlikely (and technically quite hard), but at
least _possible_ in theory. I have yet to see any actual *reasons* for
licensing under the GPLv3, though. All I've heard are shrill voices about
"tivoization" (which I expressly think is ok) and panicked worries about
Novell-MS (which seems way overblown, and quite frankly, the argument
seems to not so much be about the Novell deal, as about an excuse to push
the GPLv3). So... I'd hardly say, as you did, that he doesn't mind the GPLv3. In fact, the FSF shills really ticked off a lot of kernel devs by trying to berate them into switching to the GPLv3 back in June/July.
For one thing, the open source nvidia drivers that come with x.org were created with a lot of input from nvidia... Now, where's this open source 3D nvidia driver that is just as good as, if not better than, nvidia's offering? The Nouveau project is a little over a year old, I think, and to quote their status "Currently, there is some kind of 2D-support, and a very limited 3D support for extremely lucky developers." I'm not trying to knock their product, I think it's a good idea... it's just that reverse engineering a complex application, library or driver isn't a simply matter of banging some bits and disassembling code to see what happens. After 10+ years, wine still hasn't duplicated the entire documented windows API and that's with documentation available to point them in the right direction.
Also, if your work is dependent on an application being 100% correct (such as designing/constructing a bridge), do you want the original app supported by the original company where you can talk to the actual people who developed it or are you going to trust your livelihood and license (not to mention potentially being sued for negligence, wrongful death, etc) to a third party that cloned it but can't verify everything is exactly the same as the original application? I might be interested in buying your app for my homemade CNC setup but Architects Inc or AirSafety Products Inc aren't going to trust the clone. What if the original app is a rapid changing target so any clones are going to be several versions behind even if they're 100% duplicates?
Arguments over the punishments related to current copyright law is irrelevant to the topic I was discussing and is more of an appeal to emotion rather than an argument on the validity of the concept of copyright in general.
Does little good for the FSF desire to keep software free, which is supposedly the whole purpose of the GPL. As I said, if a world without copyrights is truly what they want, all they need to do is switch their software to the BSDL.
In a world without copyright, free software has no protections. Evilcorp can take your code, extend it, release it closed source and give you the finger because you have no claim of ownership over it. If that's the world the FSF wants to live in, they can convert the license on all their stuff to the BSDL and enjoy it now.
A world without copyright doesn't mean that everyone includes the source for their programs... It will also raise the cost of software dramatically. Autocad might cost $300k because a large architecture firms will buy one copy to install on all of their computers. Yeah, they could get it third party for free but then they wouldn't have any support to go with it. You can say the free software community will just develop a competitor, but again, that's going to rely on coders putting in a ton of effort to be feature comparable to Autocad and anyone can take that code, extend and close it because nothing protects it. Even with the protections of copyright, there still isn't a viable FOSS 3D CAD application which competes with Autocad that I'm aware of.
For what it's worth, I have a 98 Ranger. Earlier this summer, I had to replace the alternator and it took me about 15 minutes to ease the tension pulley off (all that was required was a half inch ratchet inserted into a hole to relieve the tension enough to remove the belt), remove the wiring on the existing alternator, remove the 3 bolts holding it onto the engine block, put the 3 bolts back into the new alternator, hook up the wiring to it and then relieve the tension pulley to put the belt back on (ok, so I checked the bolts with a torque wrench too). By virtue of being rear wheel drive, I also have a drive shaft and changed the U-joints and that didn't require much more in terms of tools or skill (12 point socket to unmount the driveshaft, a screw driver (or chisel), a hammer, a C clamp (though a vice or any other clamp would work just as well), some pliers and a grease gun to lubricate the new joints. A jack wasn't even needed.).
Cars have largely gotten to be a pain in the ass to work on but trucks are still fairly reasonable for a backyard mechanic. I think a lot of that has to do with the whole front wheel drive vs rear wheel drive thing dictating the way to mount the engines (which also leads to how much room you have to work with under the hood).Next up for my truck will be new shocks... and I'm sure that's going to go a whole lot smoother than it would for your typical car given I have access to everything already without having all the crap that comes with front wheel drive in the way (the rear shocks are so ridiculously easy a 5 year old could change them)
Re:Insightful Bitchslap.pl
on
Ask Rob Malda
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· Score: 1
If you're really interested in marking me as a friend, I was the one who made the post.
/puts on his tinfoil hat and waits for the trojan horse mods:)
It's much more complicated than just what I noted and is in the same family as social anxiety, though is only recently being recognized as a separate disorder (it has it's own entry in the DSM-IV). It often has traits of several different disorders and is usually co-morbid with OCD, agoraphobia, bi-polar disorder and/or panic attacks.
It goes beyond that discomfort most people feel when approaching someone new and wanting their approval (ie, approaching a woman to try to get a date)... it can outright cripple you with fear in much the same way someone who's afraid to fly won't want to get on a plane. Yeah, they can force themselves to do it but they're certainly not going to be their normal selves in the process and it will be a very emotionally consuming experience for them. I'm fine with groups of friends, I was fine for 10 years in a restaurant management setting but I'm awkward in large groups of people and completely pathetic when it comes to women that I'm attracted to. I quit my job a year ago (after years of the owner treating me like shit) and, in combination with the problems that come with me being a full time care giver to my dad, I've had a hard time even applying for a job feeling that I'm not good enough for pretty much anything I want to do (despite being "one of the smartest people" that most of my friends know).
Some people are so crippled by it that they feel everyone in the world is looking at them critically. They won't leave the house to go to the grocery store because the clerk might eye them over one of their purchases, they can't hold a job because they think the entire office thinks they're a complete idiot because they didn't put a cover sheet on their TPS report once, etc. Basically, most avoidants have a critically low self-esteem (or at least think other people hold them in extreme disregard) and seek the slightest praise to validate themselves, are extremely shy and fear the slightest detraction because it will shatter their fragile ego, have a hard time becoming close to someone (because that person may hurt them), overanalyze their environment constantly to seek out those hypersensitive signs that something must be going wrong, etc.. and all of that results in a tendency to do nothing since pushing the status quo could jeopardize their fragility. Studies of MRI analysis often show an overactive limbic system (in particular, the amygdala and cingulate gyrus IIRC. See Dr. Amen's work on anxiety and depression if you're interested) which triggers that fight or flight response
There are things I've done to try to overcome it... some things work better than others. Some things work in cycles (keeping notes of when I feel avoidant to later rationalize why I shouldn't worry about those things which eventually becomes a log of all the negativity in my life that only seems to increase in quantity as time goes on (because if you write 5 things a week, after a month, you have 20 things and after 6 months, you have 120 things (or maybe only 80) and that seems like you'll never get over it)), some things are hard to cognitively minimize (someone afraid of heights can eventually work their way to the edge at a low height and gradually work their way up to greater heights realizing that it's not much different than standing on the ground... personal encounters with new people are far too dynamic to methodically challenge yourself with exact repeatable steps beyond "smile and say hi"), etc. Anxiety drugs work for some people, not so much for others. The more time I have leading into something, the more I need to work myself up to overcome the avoidance. If it's something that happens and I can instantly react, I don't suffer from the anxiety. Lots of people go through something similar when approaching someone they're interested in. If you just go for it, you don't have time to think so you never end up getting nervous.
Anyway... I probably wasted too much time typing that in reply to an AC and it doesn't feel as coherent as I'd like but I'm going to post it rather than waste more time on someone who probably isn't interested.
I recently pointed this out to a friend of mine... here's the full list:
President Highest office served, executive preferred GWB Governor Clinton Governor GHWB Vice President Reagan Governor Carter Governor Ford Vice President Nixon Vice President LB Johnson Vice President Kennedy Senator Eisenhower General (Supreme Commander of Allied Forces) Truman Vice President FDR Governor Hoover Secretary of Commerce Coolidge Vice President/Governor Harding Lt. Governor Wilson Governor Taft Governor, Chief Justice TR Vice President, Governor McKinley Governor Cleveland President Harrison Senator Cleveland Governor McArthur Vice President Garfield General, US Representative Hayes Governor Grant General A Johnson Vice President Lincoln US Represenative Buchanan Secretary of State, Senator Pierce General, Senator Fillmore Vice President Taylor General Polk Governor Tyler Vice President, Governor Harrison General, military Governor Van Buren Vice President, Governor Jackson General, military Govneror JQ Adams Secretary of State, Senator Monroe Governor Madison Secretary of State, numerous founding documents Jefferson Vice President, Governor, that whole Declaration thing John Adams Vice President, lots of pre-Revolution stuff Washington Uh, General who won our independence
Vice President or Governor: 29 (including the last 8 Presidents) General: 6 Non-VP cabinet member: 4 Congressman with no executive experience: 3
That's a 3/42 (7.14%) historical chance of a Senator being elected President with no executive experience.
Yeah, side note before I get called out on it... there have been 43 presidents, but Cleveland served as two different numbers (22 and 24) so his previous experience only counts once.
I'm surprised you even let them do the alignment. When your BS meter goes off, who knows what else they may screw up. I live in a rural area... it was bad enough driving 14 miles to them with a front end part completely snapped in two, the next closest place I know of is 30 miles away (40 from the place where my BS detector was flashing). I figured even an idiot can get a computerized alignment closer than I could the old fashioned way with some string, a square and a tape measure.
You do realise it used to be 'normal' to only have one working parent (usually father) with the mother at home doing parenting things such as disciplining children for misbehaviour, showing them how to be productive (chores) and educating by reading them stories right? Or were you born yesterday?
You do realize that what you state is largely a myth, not a fact? back in the day when only one working parent was common (actually a briefer era than many realize), Mom was busy with cooking and cleaning and other chores. I wasn't born yesterday, but I did spend part of yesterday (and many part of many days before it) reading actual books and research on what life used to be like (a sideline into my research on cooking in America) - rather than parroting myths.
From the time I was born until after I started school, my mom didn't work at all. She cooked everything from scratch at home (we're talking making sauce from tomatoes, not buying a jar of sauce and heating it up and calling that homemade), she was a neat freak (honestly, her constantly picking up after me is why I never got in the habit of doing it myself and while I'm neat at work, I have to force myself to pick up at home) and she still had a ton of time for me. She spent hours reading with me, practicing counting, taught me math up through long division and I could write in cursive before I started school, etc. She took me to go get my library card when I was about 3 so I could learn to answer my own questions rather than rely on someone else just telling me things were a certain way. My parents bought me this little desk with a chalk board and stuff on it and taught me that learning was fun. We weren't loaded, my dad made $3-5/hour (this was 1977-1980), but they made it work and I benefited from it.
Even after I went to school, they arranged it so my mom would usually be home when I was. Despite working, coming along on field trips with my school, taking me to baseball, etc, I'd still come home to fresh baked cookies and my mom would still make pizza (dough included) from scratch. My sister is 7 years younger than me and while she's as smart as me (though in different areas... I'm more science/math and she's more language/music), she dropped out of school, has a kid of her own that she refuses to spend any time with, etc. I think the main difference is my parents got divorced when my sister was 4 and in the process, it really cut down on quality time with the parents since both were busy doing everything to maintain a separate household (which means needing twice the old income to pay two mortgages, my dad spending time doing the domestic work at his house and my mom spending time doing yard work at her house, etc), both parents undermining the authority of the other and/or disparaging the other to the kids, them trying to buy my sister's affection with gifts, etc.
I turned out pretty smart but I've got a problem called avoidant personality disorder which really has its roots in that time frame for me. Basically, I'm compelled to avoid confrontation (especially rejection from women) rather than take risks (even minimal ones) because I'm predisposed to thinking things will end in certain failure. I tend to constantly test people for their acceptance before I even let them see the real me and when it comes to taking a risk (talking to a woman, applying for a new job, going back to college, etc), I have a default state of inferiority and I have to work really hard to overcome things people won't even think twice about. It is sometimes bad enough that if I find a waitress attractive, I'll completely clam up, stare straight forward and if I'm feeling particularly uncomfortable, my right hand might start twitching.
Compare that to my sister... she dropped out of high school with 2 months left to go. Hasn't ever worked for more than 3 months at a time. Uses and abuses every guy she comes across. Got knocked up and refuses to take care of her kid (16 months old), making our mom do it for h
No surprise school is boring; the rise of social conservatives have ensured that everything that made any subject interesting have been scrubbed from the curriculum. Can't teach about sex; have to force a religious minority's views that sexual knowledge leads to lunchroom orgies. Can't teach evolution; churches might write angry letters! Can't teach history from any kind of personal viewpoint, and we certainly can't dwell on stories of heroism and conflict; we might offend the other side or give the impression that violence is ok.
Ahem, how do you think schools managed pre-hippie revolution? Back in the 50s, they weren't teaching much of anything about sex. Back in the 40s, there were tons of stories of heroism and conflict. Back in the 30s, very few were all that into teaching evolution. Back in the 20s, kids brought rifles to school to go small game hunting afterward. Back in the 18th and 19th century, most people were schooled by their parents (or if they were rich, a tutor who taught what the parents wanted the kids to learn). These were the schools (or lack of) who turned out Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, FDR, Thomas Edison, William Shockley, etc.
Maybe the problem is we've gone from actually learning solid facts (2+2=4) to feel good education where what counts is that you tried and you can always use a calculator so who cares if you get it right anyway. I went to elementary school in the early 80s and my teachers were the last of the old breed (most retired within a couple years of me having them, putting them in their early 60s which means they were born shortly after WWI and likely began teaching during the late part of WWII). My classes were forced to memorize multiplication tables. My sister's classes (7 years younger than me) did some funky new math but haven't retained any knowledge of how to do even the most basic math without a calculator (which I say as someone who used to supervise these kids in a restaurant... and even the 2001 valedictorian couldn't do simple Euclidean Geometry (9th grade math)).
My school is quite progressive (especially considering my town is very rural conservative overall), especially in terms of sex ed (we had everything short of a live demo when it came to topics like intercourse even before I graduated in 1995). I'd say something radically catastrophic changed in the way people are taught somewhere between those who learned to teach between about 1950 and 1980 based on my, albeit anecdotal, experiences... and I don't think the conservatives were dominating teaching colleges in that range. Throw in parents who don't force their kids to focus, parents who want to be their kid's friend instead of being a parent, channels like MTV which induce ADHD type thought patterns where you can't focus on anything for 3 minutes before needing a change, letting kids use things like cell phones everywhere (which produce a distraction and allows kids to be lazy about learning how to memorize things (how many heavy cell phone/PDA people can remember the phone numbers of their friends and family?)), an over-reliance on technology just because it's there (the computer lab at school was nice for the kids who took programming... everyone else just wanted to play games on them and the teachers were more than happy to let them because it meant easy supervision time instead of actually having to instruct them), etc.
Does school have to be boring? No... my best teachers made learning fun, but we actually learned something. "I could tell you that the volume of a cone is 4/3 PI r squared but it wouldn't mean anything to you so let me tell you why because then you'll never forget it (the same teacher often taught from a personal viewpoint and told us why various things would be applicable to our adult lives)." Does school have to force kids to put their toys away for 100% of the day and act like little adults? No... but kids should be able to sit in class and focus for 45 minutes at a time. Yeah, I spent my year in pre-calc sleeping thro
To be fair, my haircut takes 10 minutes at the barber (which consists of sitting in a chair, having a cape put over me and using some clippers and scissors with the only disposable product used being some baby powder on the back of my neck, a little shaving cream for the hairs removed where the powder goes and the tie that holds the cape on versus having my hair washed, maybe dyed, highlighted, whatever in addition to a cut and styling)... What's a woman's cut take, 30 minutes, an hour? The barber doesn't even ask me what cut I want since I've been going there for so long and always get the same thing... no need to pull out books or look at a magazine clipping to figure out how to cut it.
Also, I wonder if the price difference of clothing doesn't also have roots in material used. My ex-gf would always complain about how rough my shirts were compared to hers, how rough my sheets and whatnot were, etc. Honestly, her high end sheets feel smoother than mine but, eh, mine don't bother me at all. Then again, that we have rougher skin (that most guys don't normally shave the hair off of as well) and don't require smoother finishes to feel comfortable might be tie into why we're too cheap to pay more.
As for something like cars, yeah... women are more likely perceived to be ignorant about cars, so they're easier to swindle based on that perception. Thing is, a lot of guys are just as easy to swindle these days. Probably half of the guys I know don't even know how to change their own oil. I even, and this is sad, had one guy (friend) ask me where the windshield washer fluid goes.
Along these lines, I broke a front end part on my truck and took it to a local service shop to get repaired since I don't have handy access to an alignment machine (I generally do all my mechanic work myself, barring the need for cost-prohibitive specialized machinery like the aforementioned alignment machine). After pulling my truck in to do the alignment, the shop came back telling me that they tested my various fluids and found dirt in my oil (which I had just changed a week earlier but they asked if I'd like a lube job at $25) and metallic compounds in my power steering fluid (which they recommended flushing at a cost of $90). Mind you, all I asked for was to have the part replaced and an alignment done. Fortunately, I generally know what I'm doing when it comes to mechanical repairs so I know better than to fall for that kind of stuff... however, I have friends and family who don't have a mechanical BS detector and have been swindled.
It isn't just mechanics who do it... I've seen electricians, plumbers, computer geeks, home improvement store employees, etc try to swindle people. It seems like almost anyone who works on commission (or something similar like staying employed based on how many extended warranties they sell) will try to BS you into something you don't need. Now, I don't think all commissioned people do it. I know that I didn't when I used to work in a home improvement store - I'd sell the product that would best suit the customer's needs rather than what might line my (or the store I worked at) pockets a little more. Building honesty and trust are important to me and I believe they are vital to the long term health of your business/work. Much like CEOs though, a lot of people just care about what puts money in their pocket today and I don't think you can tie those type of people to (or from) any given profession.
PS - that alignment? Six or seven months later, I had to get it redone since the inside edges of my tires were wearing unevenly. Needless to say, I took it to a different place and that one didn't get pushy about what I wanted done. At least I know where I won't be taking my vehicle in the future if I need similar work.
I used to manage a small family restaurant. After years of urging the owners that we should take credit cards as an option (we also did birthday parties in our fun center and bad checks were a major problem), they finally broke down and got a credit card machine. At least for us, the terms were (going on memory, I might be off a bit): 50 cents per transaction plus a fixed percentage (varied per card with Visa and Mastercard being 2%, AmEx Business class cards being 5% and the rest falling somewhere between) and 25 cents for swiping an invalid card (whether the card was expired, over the limit, totally invalid or just a credit network we didn't use), 15 cents to modify a previous transaction (to, say, add the tip you added when you signed the receipt onto the charge), etc. There were also fees for checking and reserving a certain portion of credit (say, a security deposit on a rental), but we didn't have to deal with that, so I don't remember what they cost. We were also charged $1 to print out a summary so we could make sure the tills balanced out right.
So... a $1 transaction with a personal Discover card would cost us a 50 cent transaction fee plus another 4 cents (the fixed percentage). If someone used an over the limit card and then switched to a valid card, that transaction would then take up 79 cents of that dollar. That's before we figure in the cost of the product, utilities, storage, labor, etc. I estimated that any transaction under $5 or so was costing us money when done with a credit card. Of course, that's selling a tangible product rather than a collection of infinitely duplicable bits and also take into account that we did less than $1000 a day in credit card transactions versus someplace huge like a big box retailer who can get more favorable terms.
I remember rare dupes back around 1998 and 1999 but it definitely got worse as time went on. It seems to be getting a little better since the firehose though.
am a little confused here. Why are you searching in the include files? I know you can say something like "GPL v2 in the header of each file, but if you state GPL v2 then you should be searching the actual file containing the GPL v2 words.
Searching the GPL v2 file:
$ grep -i "later version" license.txt
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
(at your option) any later version.
I could have used "wc" but i think the above lines are enough. That's nice... now read the GPL2 in context:
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
[under How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs]
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version. As you can see, you need to specify with the source code of, and the header files are a good indication of that, especially since they're all marked with their license in this case, your program specifically stating that you will allow later versions of the GPL. The GPLv2 on it's own does not allow someone else to use the software under another license without the author specifically allowing you to.
Note that the only valid version of the GPL for MediaTomb is this particular
version of the license (ie v2, not v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless
explicitly otherwise stated.
The above was added to the beginning of the GPL v2 text so I would assume this was the authors wishes and I personally would not make changes without his permission, GPL or anything else for that matter, but how binding this is I don't know. Unfortunately if you publish anything today you better have selected an appropriate license or have a good lawyer if you want to "roll your own". The author was simply being overly explicit that only the GPLv2 applies to his work so someone can't come along and steal his work under a different license by twisting the words of the GPL. Even the FSFLA board member Alexandre Oliva* tried to convince the Linux kernel devs that someone could could fork and relicense the kernel under GPLv3 if they continued to refuse to switch. Not even Linus can do that. The only person who can change the license of a work is the copyright holder (unless the license they released it under specifically allows relicensing to begin with), of which, there are thousands in the Linux kernel.
*Alexandre, who proudly touts his Free Software evangelism in his signature, did more to harm my (and I'm sure many other people's) view of the FSF, GPLv3 and it's supporters than any amount of FUD from an outsider ever could. If you have LOTS of time and want to enjoy the month long hissy fit/flame war because the kernel devs won't submit to the FSF's desires, check out these twothreads.
I don't believe it's quite as cut and dried as the FSF would have us believe though...
Lets say I write a program that uses just ANSI and POSIX functions. Maybe something that converts a CSV file of addresses into a XML file using nothing but the C standard library. Let's pretend that glibc was GPL just for the sake of argument... now, I could link to glibc, ulibc, dietlibc, whatever libc MS, Apple, SGI, Sun, whoever uses... My program doesn't have to be GPL to link to glibc in that case because I'm using generic functions that can be substituted by a number of libraries.
Going back a few years, you had Motif, which was under a proprietary license and another project was started to create an open version of it (Open Motif). You could develop a program which dynamically linked to either as long as you followed the terms of at least one of those projects. If someone compiled your code against Motif, you (as the author) weren't suddenly bound to buy a several thousand dollar license because someone else chose to link against that particular library.
What it all ultimately comes down to is how you define derivative work. Creating a static binary doesn't necessarily make your work derivative but you may not have the right to distribute that binary (because copyright restricts what you can distribute and without permission, whether a work is derivative or not, you can't distribute someone else's work). We've already seen that a dynamically linked library may not be a source of derivation if the functionality is duplicated elsewhere... so, it comes down to how unique the library and the way you're using it are and ultimately, that is up to a court to decide. Further, the FSF maintains that the GPL doesn't restrict use, only distribution. Therefore, if I use GPL code (by dynamically linking to it), as long as I'm not distributing it, I should be in the clear. Redhat, Ubuntu, etc may have some problems if they distribute both my work and the GPL work I link to, however. Even then, there are ways around this (a benefit of Gentoo... they distribute one part and I have to manually request the other part. Both are then compiled and linked on my machine, meaning that Gentoo didn't distribute it as such and I created the derivative work for my own use. As long as I don't distribute it, I'm in the clear according to the GPL).
I will agree that it is definitely safest to assume that dynamic linking creates a derivative work, but that may not be true in some specific case and even then, there are ways to get around it. Of course, IANAL, I just play one on Slashdot.
On Gentoo
grep "version 2"/usr/kde/3.5/include/* | wc
393 4848 40829
grep "version 2"/usr/kde/3.5/include/* | grep "later version" | wc
217 2878 22629 So, it would seem that 217 files are GPL2+ and and 176 GPL2(only) as far as KDE is concerned. However, KDE is built on QT which is licensed as
grep "version 2"/usr/include/qt4/Qt*/* | wc
994 10962 104446
grep "version 2"/usr/include/qt4/Qt*/* | grep "later version" | wc
0 0 0 So it would seem that QT is GPL2 only. A quick scan of a couple header files notes that
** This file may be used under the terms of the GNU General Public
** License version 2.0 as published by the Free Software Foundation
** and appearing in the file LICENSE.GPL included in the packaging of
** this file. Please review the following information to ensure GNU
** General Public Licensing requirements will be met:
** http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/opensource/ So... if you can somehow mix the KDE parts that are GPL2+ without using the QT library at all and without using the KDE parts that are GPL2(only), you're safe to mix GPL3 code with KDE. Good luck with that, though.
I think the other issues can be disregarded, since they are either "peanuts" (i.e. having a school board election is a local issue so big mass media is not interested and we are talking about a limited number of voters anyway; even if they concur, I'd say it'd be good enough to process, say, presidentials and senatorial votes first, and then everything else), or are properly managed anywhere else (do you think 10 parties is a mess? Try any european democracy! you will find parties by the dozens).
The thing is, in theory, your state and local politicians are supposed to have a bigger effect on your life than the federal level ones... That rarely seems to be the case these days, but if you combine that notion with the fact that, especially at the town or county level, you might personally know the person running, many people care about the local elections more. Also, prior to the 17th Amendment, Senators were chosen by the state legislators rather than direct election. I'm personally not so sure that changing them to direct election was the right idea.
Why the heck the country of the liberties allow for mass media big corps to control the election day? It seems quite counterproductive to announce east coast results when polls are still open on west coast? I don't buy your assertion about "people want results ASAP" but I see is CNN and the likes the ones that want results ASAP. And even then, I know that in EU, even with dozen of parties and three or four electoral process concurring, counting by hand doesn't take so much than your mechanical methods (I know my president in no more time than it takes to know yours... in fact much less in your two last presidentials). Well, I admit everything is a little easier from the press point of fiew in EU since we are only three hours apart from east to west instead of six.
The east coast has the world's financial center, the US capital and all the country's major news headquarters. The elitists in those places already believe the world revolves around them so they want the winner before they go to bed. The media coverage (controlled by those people) is just a reflection of that. I'm not so sure the average adult (also remember, only 40% or so of them vote) feels they have to know the results that night.
Your method of "the winner takes all" for presidentials at the state level means that even if there are 100.000.000 of voters, all the show can come down to a short bunch of geographically agregated votes (like those from Florida in last two presidentials) so even a minimal margin for fraud (like about five counties in the whole USA) can make an enormous difference (on a non-geographycally bound electorial process of course you can get a winner by a single vote, but then you won't know it in advance and it makes one-by-one precinct fraud procedures almost absolutly irrelevant). But then it clearly works *against* any centrally controlled counting procedures ("centrally" meaning here things like all ballots going to single point to be processed, or a single vendor producing voting machines). I don't think there's a valid software-based voting procedure yet, and specially those based or including a voting receipt which are basically flawed by design by the very begining, but even then, it would be easy to apply some on those methods in old Europe than in USA.
Not every state uses the winner takes all method for electoral votes, though the vast majority do. As for the Electoral College, it reduces the odds of voter irregularities causing the entire election to come into doubt and ensures that you can't win by just catering to a few populous cities while ignoring the needs of the rest of the country. If it were strictly the popular vote that counted, you would have people screwing around with the vote in places that the media doesn't provide much coverage... stuff the ballot box in places like Alcova, WY (just a random town in the middle of nowhere I picked off google maps) and who would know? The vast major
I probably don't understand in its enterity the voting system of the USA but what I don't really understand is what the problem is with just manually counting all the f* ballots! It is a highly parallelizable task which means it really doesn't matter if we are talking about 10.000 or 100.000.000 votes; just allow for about 1000 to 5000 votes for voting box and as many voting boxes as needed and you will be done in about two/three hours from the closing of the last voting box.
At the Federal level, every two years, there is an election for the House of Representatives. Twice in six years, you will have a vote for Senate in your state (2 Senators per state, each with a 6 year term. Terms are staggered so that every 2 years, 1/3rd of the Senate is up for election). There's also a Presidential vote every 4 years. Every even numbered year, you will have at least two federal offices on the ballot, but usually all three.
Now, it can vary a little at the state level. Here in NY, we have a State Senator and State Representative up for election every 2 years. Every 4 years, we also have several state offices like Governor, Attorney General and Comptroller. Those 4 year offices are held in the non-Presidential even year here (last one being 2006). Also, there is usually 1-2 referendums on the ballot.
Then, some counties have an election to pick a legislature... some do a Board of Supervisors instead (the Town Supervisor of each town holds a seat on the Board). In addition to that, there are also elections for County Justices, Coroner, Sheriff, Animal Warden, Clerk, etc. You might have another 6 or more offices here. Sometimes, counties may have a referendum on something like raising the sales tax rate as well.
Finally, you get down to the city/town/village level. In my town, the Supervisor, 5 board members with a 2 year term (3 one year, 2 the next), Highway Superintendent, 2 Justices and Clerk. If you live in the village, in addition to the above, you also get to elect a Mayor.
There are also school elections (board members and budget approval), but those are conducted during a different session for just school related stuff.
All together, there may be as many as 20 different offices/issues to vote on in a given year... Now, election day is a big deal. Talk radio is usually all election centric, whether a national or local show. The 24 hours news tv channels are 95% election (and 100% election between about 6pm eastern time until the national winners are called). Local news interrupts their shows to show local coverage starting around 9pm (poll closing time) and going until the major local races are resolved and even prior to that, they're often cutting to campaign headquarters to show their moods as election day goes on.
So... all the hype and media pressure makes people want results ASAP. Many times, the results of east coasts states are announced before the polls close out west (each state has their own poll closing time based on their local time, it isn't a standard closing time country wide) and sometimes (2000 Florida for example), they will announce their expected result "accidentally" before all the polls are even closed in that state. That reporting alone can cause people to not bother voting because "the polls are already pointing to who is going to win anyway."
So, the reason why people (especially the media who is busy selling ad time for all the people glued to the tv/radio) want mechanical/electronic/scanned/whatever voting is so they can have instantaneous results for those 20 ballots they cast and know who won before they go to bed at 11 or 11:30pm. Even if you divide each precinct into 1000 voters, you're still looking at potentially 20,000 votes to hand count before 11pm (because people don't want to just know who the new President will be, they also want to see if their friend won for the Town Board). Ohio is a key swing state and they're on Central time so they only have one hour to count the votes before the east
I mean, your "boss" might make you take a cell phone picture of your votes. No matter what you do, there's always potential for abuse. and on the lever voting machine I use, I'd take the picture and then set the levers how I want them (they're mechanically cleared as you pull the lever to count your vote). On paper ballots, you take a picture before submitting and then request a fresh ballot because you made a mistake.
Where I vote, we're asked our name and sign next to it in a book. There's no way to know how I voted or if I abstained (we're still using the old lever machines and an abstain is simply going in, shutting the door and opening it back up without pulling any levers... it tallies you on the total voters counter but doesn't tally on the individual counters). In fact, there are usually a lot of local races with only one person running and if I don't know that person or I think they're an idiot, I will deliberately abstain for just that office.
That said, anyone can go in and check the books to see who voted... my dad worked for the town highway department and their boss (which is an elected position) would give them the day off iff they voted (which he could verify with the voter rolls). Of course, he had no way of knowing who they voted for.
Good god...you people are paranoid to the point of needing medication. an ad hominem is a good, logical way to refute a point
I'm arguing that it's not the end of the world if they do that you seem to think of it. And I think you're minimizing the impact it could have on people. Right now, you can tell your spouse, parent, boss, whatever that you voted the way they wanted you to and there's nothing they can do to prove it. If you even offer receipts to take from the polling station, it becomes "You will vote the way I want and you will show me the receipt. Failure to do either will result in [X]."
Giving people proof they voted isn't going to bring the world to a conspiracy colapse that you're predicting. Who said anything about a conspiracy? I know people who grew up in highly partisan families who were expected to vote exactly how their family told them to, period. One friend was married and 25ish before she finally voted opposite her parents. Even then, she felt the need to lie to them so they wouldn't shun her. I'm not talking about some grand conspiracy... and I'm not suggesting it would create a new crime. Family members who threaten to abuse someone if they don't vote a certain way and/or do abuse them if they don't show their receipt or their receipt shows an opposite vote are already committing a crime or are likely to be if it is physical abuse we're talking about.
...if I were exit polled, I'd deliberately give false answers to poison the data because I believe exit polling is inherently flawed to begin with. And it's people with attitudes like that which make it "inherently flawed to begin with. 1) people shouldn't be compiling info on a vote in progress. Nobody needs to know which way the polls are tilting 12 hours before the polls close. If we have to wait until the next morning to get a result, that's fine with me... it would prevent the media from trying to interfere with the vote in subtle, and sometimes not so subtle (such as calling an election before all the polls have closed), ways.
2) there is sample bias produced by the exit poll takers. For example, a college male is more likely to ask an attractive female how she voted (so he gets a chance to talk to her) than he is another demographic. A 20 year old female is more likely to vote a certain way, so they're a more predictable vote to begin with... it is only if they don't vote the way you think they will that they're an interesting demographic to poll and if that's the case, a lot of other demographics will be showing even more extreme statistics.
3) Along the lines of #2, some people feel threatened by someone asking them their vote and will succumb to peer pressure in reporting it. Those people are more likely to tell the exit poll taker what they think the exit poll taker wants to hear rather than their real vote, especially if they're casting a minority vote in their area (someone in San Francisco may say they voted for the liberal rather than the conservative they really voted for in order to avoid a possible confrontation)
4) You have people that will deliberately give false information to poison the data (whether I do it or not doesn't matter because other people are doing it... I would just poison it a little more)
5) To "correct" things like the stuff above, you need to normalize your data... that said, how do you know exactly how to normalize it? There are tons of factors in why you're getting the result you are and it can be especially hard to analyze in real time on the day of the election. Besides, what good is a poll where you have to fudge the data to get the results you want, especially when there is a real poll with data that isn't so manipulatable* that your fudged poll is supposed to be guessing the outcome of.
Yeah... it's possible to manipulate the ballot box and that's the core problem with our voting systems. Fixing that is outside the scope of my reply to you.
And when it is your parent or spouse doing it, that fine, a felony conviction and/or any jail time will probably have a major negative impact on the rest of your life... much more negative than just voting how they told you to and showing them the receipt.
It would probably have an effect on exit polling too... only count the votes of the receipts people let you see. I've never been exit polled since my district always splits in the ballpark of 75/25 on state/federal level offices, but if I were exit polled, I'd deliberately give false answers to poison the data because I believe exit polling is inherently flawed to begin with.
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What Linus said was "I was impressed in the sense that it was a hell of a lot better than the disaster that were the earlier drafts. I still think GPLv2 is simply the better license."
A couple days later, he expresses more angst with the GPLv3 and the FSF.
The bottom line is I consider dual-licensing unlikely (and technically quite hard), but at least _possible_ in theory. I have yet to see any actual *reasons* for licensing under the GPLv3, though. All I've heard are shrill voices about "tivoization" (which I expressly think is ok) and panicked worries about Novell-MS (which seems way overblown, and quite frankly, the argument seems to not so much be about the Novell deal, as about an excuse to push the GPLv3). So... I'd hardly say, as you did, that he doesn't mind the GPLv3. In fact, the FSF shills really ticked off a lot of kernel devs by trying to berate them into switching to the GPLv3 back in June/July.
For one thing, the open source nvidia drivers that come with x.org were created with a lot of input from nvidia... Now, where's this open source 3D nvidia driver that is just as good as, if not better than, nvidia's offering? The Nouveau project is a little over a year old, I think, and to quote their status "Currently, there is some kind of 2D-support, and a very limited 3D support for extremely lucky developers." I'm not trying to knock their product, I think it's a good idea... it's just that reverse engineering a complex application, library or driver isn't a simply matter of banging some bits and disassembling code to see what happens. After 10+ years, wine still hasn't duplicated the entire documented windows API and that's with documentation available to point them in the right direction.
Also, if your work is dependent on an application being 100% correct (such as designing/constructing a bridge), do you want the original app supported by the original company where you can talk to the actual people who developed it or are you going to trust your livelihood and license (not to mention potentially being sued for negligence, wrongful death, etc) to a third party that cloned it but can't verify everything is exactly the same as the original application? I might be interested in buying your app for my homemade CNC setup but Architects Inc or AirSafety Products Inc aren't going to trust the clone. What if the original app is a rapid changing target so any clones are going to be several versions behind even if they're 100% duplicates?
Arguments over the punishments related to current copyright law is irrelevant to the topic I was discussing and is more of an appeal to emotion rather than an argument on the validity of the concept of copyright in general.
Does little good for the FSF desire to keep software free, which is supposedly the whole purpose of the GPL. As I said, if a world without copyrights is truly what they want, all they need to do is switch their software to the BSDL.
In a world without copyright, free software has no protections. Evilcorp can take your code, extend it, release it closed source and give you the finger because you have no claim of ownership over it. If that's the world the FSF wants to live in, they can convert the license on all their stuff to the BSDL and enjoy it now.
A world without copyright doesn't mean that everyone includes the source for their programs... It will also raise the cost of software dramatically. Autocad might cost $300k because a large architecture firms will buy one copy to install on all of their computers. Yeah, they could get it third party for free but then they wouldn't have any support to go with it. You can say the free software community will just develop a competitor, but again, that's going to rely on coders putting in a ton of effort to be feature comparable to Autocad and anyone can take that code, extend and close it because nothing protects it. Even with the protections of copyright, there still isn't a viable FOSS 3D CAD application which competes with Autocad that I'm aware of.
For what it's worth, I have a 98 Ranger. Earlier this summer, I had to replace the alternator and it took me about 15 minutes to ease the tension pulley off (all that was required was a half inch ratchet inserted into a hole to relieve the tension enough to remove the belt), remove the wiring on the existing alternator, remove the 3 bolts holding it onto the engine block, put the 3 bolts back into the new alternator, hook up the wiring to it and then relieve the tension pulley to put the belt back on (ok, so I checked the bolts with a torque wrench too). By virtue of being rear wheel drive, I also have a drive shaft and changed the U-joints and that didn't require much more in terms of tools or skill (12 point socket to unmount the driveshaft, a screw driver (or chisel), a hammer, a C clamp (though a vice or any other clamp would work just as well), some pliers and a grease gun to lubricate the new joints. A jack wasn't even needed.).
Cars have largely gotten to be a pain in the ass to work on but trucks are still fairly reasonable for a backyard mechanic. I think a lot of that has to do with the whole front wheel drive vs rear wheel drive thing dictating the way to mount the engines (which also leads to how much room you have to work with under the hood).Next up for my truck will be new shocks... and I'm sure that's going to go a whole lot smoother than it would for your typical car given I have access to everything already without having all the crap that comes with front wheel drive in the way (the rear shocks are so ridiculously easy a 5 year old could change them)
If you're really interested in marking me as a friend, I was the one who made the post.
/puts on his tinfoil hat and waits for the trojan horse mods :)
It's much more complicated than just what I noted and is in the same family as social anxiety, though is only recently being recognized as a separate disorder (it has it's own entry in the DSM-IV). It often has traits of several different disorders and is usually co-morbid with OCD, agoraphobia, bi-polar disorder and/or panic attacks.
It goes beyond that discomfort most people feel when approaching someone new and wanting their approval (ie, approaching a woman to try to get a date)... it can outright cripple you with fear in much the same way someone who's afraid to fly won't want to get on a plane. Yeah, they can force themselves to do it but they're certainly not going to be their normal selves in the process and it will be a very emotionally consuming experience for them. I'm fine with groups of friends, I was fine for 10 years in a restaurant management setting but I'm awkward in large groups of people and completely pathetic when it comes to women that I'm attracted to. I quit my job a year ago (after years of the owner treating me like shit) and, in combination with the problems that come with me being a full time care giver to my dad, I've had a hard time even applying for a job feeling that I'm not good enough for pretty much anything I want to do (despite being "one of the smartest people" that most of my friends know).
Some people are so crippled by it that they feel everyone in the world is looking at them critically. They won't leave the house to go to the grocery store because the clerk might eye them over one of their purchases, they can't hold a job because they think the entire office thinks they're a complete idiot because they didn't put a cover sheet on their TPS report once, etc. Basically, most avoidants have a critically low self-esteem (or at least think other people hold them in extreme disregard) and seek the slightest praise to validate themselves, are extremely shy and fear the slightest detraction because it will shatter their fragile ego, have a hard time becoming close to someone (because that person may hurt them), overanalyze their environment constantly to seek out those hypersensitive signs that something must be going wrong, etc.. and all of that results in a tendency to do nothing since pushing the status quo could jeopardize their fragility. Studies of MRI analysis often show an overactive limbic system (in particular, the amygdala and cingulate gyrus IIRC. See Dr. Amen's work on anxiety and depression if you're interested) which triggers that fight or flight response
There are things I've done to try to overcome it... some things work better than others. Some things work in cycles (keeping notes of when I feel avoidant to later rationalize why I shouldn't worry about those things which eventually becomes a log of all the negativity in my life that only seems to increase in quantity as time goes on (because if you write 5 things a week, after a month, you have 20 things and after 6 months, you have 120 things (or maybe only 80) and that seems like you'll never get over it)), some things are hard to cognitively minimize (someone afraid of heights can eventually work their way to the edge at a low height and gradually work their way up to greater heights realizing that it's not much different than standing on the ground... personal encounters with new people are far too dynamic to methodically challenge yourself with exact repeatable steps beyond "smile and say hi"), etc. Anxiety drugs work for some people, not so much for others. The more time I have leading into something, the more I need to work myself up to overcome the avoidance. If it's something that happens and I can instantly react, I don't suffer from the anxiety. Lots of people go through something similar when approaching someone they're interested in. If you just go for it, you don't have time to think so you never end up getting nervous.
Anyway... I probably wasted too much time typing that in reply to an AC and it doesn't feel as coherent as I'd like but I'm going to post it rather than waste more time on someone who probably isn't interested.
I recently pointed this out to a friend of mine... here's the full list:
President Highest office served, executive preferred
GWB Governor
Clinton Governor
GHWB Vice President
Reagan Governor
Carter Governor
Ford Vice President
Nixon Vice President
LB Johnson Vice President
Kennedy Senator
Eisenhower General (Supreme Commander of Allied Forces)
Truman Vice President
FDR Governor
Hoover Secretary of Commerce
Coolidge Vice President/Governor
Harding Lt. Governor
Wilson Governor
Taft Governor, Chief Justice
TR Vice President, Governor
McKinley Governor
Cleveland President
Harrison Senator
Cleveland Governor
McArthur Vice President
Garfield General, US Representative
Hayes Governor
Grant General
A Johnson Vice President
Lincoln US Represenative
Buchanan Secretary of State, Senator
Pierce General, Senator
Fillmore Vice President
Taylor General
Polk Governor
Tyler Vice President, Governor
Harrison General, military Governor
Van Buren Vice President, Governor
Jackson General, military Govneror
JQ Adams Secretary of State, Senator
Monroe Governor
Madison Secretary of State, numerous founding documents
Jefferson Vice President, Governor, that whole Declaration thing
John Adams Vice President, lots of pre-Revolution stuff
Washington Uh, General who won our independence
Vice President or Governor: 29 (including the last 8 Presidents)
General: 6
Non-VP cabinet member: 4
Congressman with no executive experience: 3
That's a 3/42 (7.14%) historical chance of a Senator being elected
President with no executive experience.
Yeah, side note before I get called out on it... there have been 43 presidents, but Cleveland served as two different numbers (22 and 24) so his previous experience only counts once.
You do realise it used to be 'normal' to only have one working parent (usually father) with the mother at home doing parenting things such as disciplining children for misbehaviour, showing them how to be productive (chores) and educating by reading them stories right? Or were you born yesterday?
You do realize that what you state is largely a myth, not a fact? back in the day when only one working parent was common (actually a briefer era than many realize), Mom was busy with cooking and cleaning and other chores. I wasn't born yesterday, but I did spend part of yesterday (and many part of many days before it) reading actual books and research on what life used to be like (a sideline into my research on cooking in America) - rather than parroting myths.
From the time I was born until after I started school, my mom didn't work at all. She cooked everything from scratch at home (we're talking making sauce from tomatoes, not buying a jar of sauce and heating it up and calling that homemade), she was a neat freak (honestly, her constantly picking up after me is why I never got in the habit of doing it myself and while I'm neat at work, I have to force myself to pick up at home) and she still had a ton of time for me. She spent hours reading with me, practicing counting, taught me math up through long division and I could write in cursive before I started school, etc. She took me to go get my library card when I was about 3 so I could learn to answer my own questions rather than rely on someone else just telling me things were a certain way. My parents bought me this little desk with a chalk board and stuff on it and taught me that learning was fun. We weren't loaded, my dad made $3-5/hour (this was 1977-1980), but they made it work and I benefited from it.
Even after I went to school, they arranged it so my mom would usually be home when I was. Despite working, coming along on field trips with my school, taking me to baseball, etc, I'd still come home to fresh baked cookies and my mom would still make pizza (dough included) from scratch. My sister is 7 years younger than me and while she's as smart as me (though in different areas... I'm more science/math and she's more language/music), she dropped out of school, has a kid of her own that she refuses to spend any time with, etc. I think the main difference is my parents got divorced when my sister was 4 and in the process, it really cut down on quality time with the parents since both were busy doing everything to maintain a separate household (which means needing twice the old income to pay two mortgages, my dad spending time doing the domestic work at his house and my mom spending time doing yard work at her house, etc), both parents undermining the authority of the other and/or disparaging the other to the kids, them trying to buy my sister's affection with gifts, etc.
I turned out pretty smart but I've got a problem called avoidant personality disorder which really has its roots in that time frame for me. Basically, I'm compelled to avoid confrontation (especially rejection from women) rather than take risks (even minimal ones) because I'm predisposed to thinking things will end in certain failure. I tend to constantly test people for their acceptance before I even let them see the real me and when it comes to taking a risk (talking to a woman, applying for a new job, going back to college, etc), I have a default state of inferiority and I have to work really hard to overcome things people won't even think twice about. It is sometimes bad enough that if I find a waitress attractive, I'll completely clam up, stare straight forward and if I'm feeling particularly uncomfortable, my right hand might start twitching.
Compare that to my sister... she dropped out of high school with 2 months left to go. Hasn't ever worked for more than 3 months at a time. Uses and abuses every guy she comes across. Got knocked up and refuses to take care of her kid (16 months old), making our mom do it for h
No surprise school is boring; the rise of social conservatives have ensured that everything that made any subject interesting have been scrubbed from the curriculum. Can't teach about sex; have to force a religious minority's views that sexual knowledge leads to lunchroom orgies. Can't teach evolution; churches might write angry letters! Can't teach history from any kind of personal viewpoint, and we certainly can't dwell on stories of heroism and conflict; we might offend the other side or give the impression that violence is ok.
Ahem, how do you think schools managed pre-hippie revolution? Back in the 50s, they weren't teaching much of anything about sex. Back in the 40s, there were tons of stories of heroism and conflict. Back in the 30s, very few were all that into teaching evolution. Back in the 20s, kids brought rifles to school to go small game hunting afterward. Back in the 18th and 19th century, most people were schooled by their parents (or if they were rich, a tutor who taught what the parents wanted the kids to learn). These were the schools (or lack of) who turned out Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, FDR, Thomas Edison, William Shockley, etc.
Maybe the problem is we've gone from actually learning solid facts (2+2=4) to feel good education where what counts is that you tried and you can always use a calculator so who cares if you get it right anyway. I went to elementary school in the early 80s and my teachers were the last of the old breed (most retired within a couple years of me having them, putting them in their early 60s which means they were born shortly after WWI and likely began teaching during the late part of WWII). My classes were forced to memorize multiplication tables. My sister's classes (7 years younger than me) did some funky new math but haven't retained any knowledge of how to do even the most basic math without a calculator (which I say as someone who used to supervise these kids in a restaurant... and even the 2001 valedictorian couldn't do simple Euclidean Geometry (9th grade math)).
My school is quite progressive (especially considering my town is very rural conservative overall), especially in terms of sex ed (we had everything short of a live demo when it came to topics like intercourse even before I graduated in 1995). I'd say something radically catastrophic changed in the way people are taught somewhere between those who learned to teach between about 1950 and 1980 based on my, albeit anecdotal, experiences... and I don't think the conservatives were dominating teaching colleges in that range. Throw in parents who don't force their kids to focus, parents who want to be their kid's friend instead of being a parent, channels like MTV which induce ADHD type thought patterns where you can't focus on anything for 3 minutes before needing a change, letting kids use things like cell phones everywhere (which produce a distraction and allows kids to be lazy about learning how to memorize things (how many heavy cell phone/PDA people can remember the phone numbers of their friends and family?)), an over-reliance on technology just because it's there (the computer lab at school was nice for the kids who took programming... everyone else just wanted to play games on them and the teachers were more than happy to let them because it meant easy supervision time instead of actually having to instruct them), etc.
Does school have to be boring? No... my best teachers made learning fun, but we actually learned something. "I could tell you that the volume of a cone is 4/3 PI r squared but it wouldn't mean anything to you so let me tell you why because then you'll never forget it (the same teacher often taught from a personal viewpoint and told us why various things would be applicable to our adult lives)." Does school have to force kids to put their toys away for 100% of the day and act like little adults? No... but kids should be able to sit in class and focus for 45 minutes at a time. Yeah, I spent my year in pre-calc sleeping thro
To be fair, my haircut takes 10 minutes at the barber (which consists of sitting in a chair, having a cape put over me and using some clippers and scissors with the only disposable product used being some baby powder on the back of my neck, a little shaving cream for the hairs removed where the powder goes and the tie that holds the cape on versus having my hair washed, maybe dyed, highlighted, whatever in addition to a cut and styling)... What's a woman's cut take, 30 minutes, an hour? The barber doesn't even ask me what cut I want since I've been going there for so long and always get the same thing... no need to pull out books or look at a magazine clipping to figure out how to cut it.
Also, I wonder if the price difference of clothing doesn't also have roots in material used. My ex-gf would always complain about how rough my shirts were compared to hers, how rough my sheets and whatnot were, etc. Honestly, her high end sheets feel smoother than mine but, eh, mine don't bother me at all. Then again, that we have rougher skin (that most guys don't normally shave the hair off of as well) and don't require smoother finishes to feel comfortable might be tie into why we're too cheap to pay more.
As for something like cars, yeah... women are more likely perceived to be ignorant about cars, so they're easier to swindle based on that perception. Thing is, a lot of guys are just as easy to swindle these days. Probably half of the guys I know don't even know how to change their own oil. I even, and this is sad, had one guy (friend) ask me where the windshield washer fluid goes.
Along these lines, I broke a front end part on my truck and took it to a local service shop to get repaired since I don't have handy access to an alignment machine (I generally do all my mechanic work myself, barring the need for cost-prohibitive specialized machinery like the aforementioned alignment machine). After pulling my truck in to do the alignment, the shop came back telling me that they tested my various fluids and found dirt in my oil (which I had just changed a week earlier but they asked if I'd like a lube job at $25) and metallic compounds in my power steering fluid (which they recommended flushing at a cost of $90). Mind you, all I asked for was to have the part replaced and an alignment done. Fortunately, I generally know what I'm doing when it comes to mechanical repairs so I know better than to fall for that kind of stuff... however, I have friends and family who don't have a mechanical BS detector and have been swindled.
It isn't just mechanics who do it... I've seen electricians, plumbers, computer geeks, home improvement store employees, etc try to swindle people. It seems like almost anyone who works on commission (or something similar like staying employed based on how many extended warranties they sell) will try to BS you into something you don't need. Now, I don't think all commissioned people do it. I know that I didn't when I used to work in a home improvement store - I'd sell the product that would best suit the customer's needs rather than what might line my (or the store I worked at) pockets a little more. Building honesty and trust are important to me and I believe they are vital to the long term health of your business/work. Much like CEOs though, a lot of people just care about what puts money in their pocket today and I don't think you can tie those type of people to (or from) any given profession.
PS - that alignment? Six or seven months later, I had to get it redone since the inside edges of my tires were wearing unevenly. Needless to say, I took it to a different place and that one didn't get pushy about what I wanted done. At least I know where I won't be taking my vehicle in the future if I need similar work.
I used to manage a small family restaurant. After years of urging the owners that we should take credit cards as an option (we also did birthday parties in our fun center and bad checks were a major problem), they finally broke down and got a credit card machine. At least for us, the terms were (going on memory, I might be off a bit): 50 cents per transaction plus a fixed percentage (varied per card with Visa and Mastercard being 2%, AmEx Business class cards being 5% and the rest falling somewhere between) and 25 cents for swiping an invalid card (whether the card was expired, over the limit, totally invalid or just a credit network we didn't use), 15 cents to modify a previous transaction (to, say, add the tip you added when you signed the receipt onto the charge), etc. There were also fees for checking and reserving a certain portion of credit (say, a security deposit on a rental), but we didn't have to deal with that, so I don't remember what they cost. We were also charged $1 to print out a summary so we could make sure the tills balanced out right.
So... a $1 transaction with a personal Discover card would cost us a 50 cent transaction fee plus another 4 cents (the fixed percentage). If someone used an over the limit card and then switched to a valid card, that transaction would then take up 79 cents of that dollar. That's before we figure in the cost of the product, utilities, storage, labor, etc. I estimated that any transaction under $5 or so was costing us money when done with a credit card. Of course, that's selling a tangible product rather than a collection of infinitely duplicable bits and also take into account that we did less than $1000 a day in credit card transactions versus someplace huge like a big box retailer who can get more favorable terms.
There's always the wayback machine
I remember rare dupes back around 1998 and 1999 but it definitely got worse as time went on. It seems to be getting a little better since the firehose though.
Searching the GPL v2 file:
$ grep -i "later version" license.txt
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
(at your option) any later version.
I could have used "wc" but i think the above lines are enough. That's nice... now read the GPL2 in context:
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
[under How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs]
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version. As you can see, you need to specify with the source code of, and the header files are a good indication of that, especially since they're all marked with their license in this case, your program specifically stating that you will allow later versions of the GPL. The GPLv2 on it's own does not allow someone else to use the software under another license without the author specifically allowing you to.
Note that the only valid version of the GPL for MediaTomb is this particular
version of the license (ie v2, not v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless
explicitly otherwise stated.
The above was added to the beginning of the GPL v2 text so I would assume this was the authors wishes and I personally would not make changes without his permission, GPL or anything else for that matter, but how binding this is I don't know. Unfortunately if you publish anything today you better have selected an appropriate license or have a good lawyer if you want to "roll your own". The author was simply being overly explicit that only the GPLv2 applies to his work so someone can't come along and steal his work under a different license by twisting the words of the GPL. Even the FSFLA board member Alexandre Oliva* tried to convince the Linux kernel devs that someone could could fork and relicense the kernel under GPLv3 if they continued to refuse to switch. Not even Linus can do that. The only person who can change the license of a work is the copyright holder (unless the license they released it under specifically allows relicensing to begin with), of which, there are thousands in the Linux kernel.
*Alexandre, who proudly touts his Free Software evangelism in his signature, did more to harm my (and I'm sure many other people's) view of the FSF, GPLv3 and it's supporters than any amount of FUD from an outsider ever could. If you have LOTS of time and want to enjoy the month long hissy fit/flame war because the kernel devs won't submit to the FSF's desires, check out these two threads.
I don't believe it's quite as cut and dried as the FSF would have us believe though...
Lets say I write a program that uses just ANSI and POSIX functions. Maybe something that converts a CSV file of addresses into a XML file using nothing but the C standard library. Let's pretend that glibc was GPL just for the sake of argument... now, I could link to glibc, ulibc, dietlibc, whatever libc MS, Apple, SGI, Sun, whoever uses... My program doesn't have to be GPL to link to glibc in that case because I'm using generic functions that can be substituted by a number of libraries.
Going back a few years, you had Motif, which was under a proprietary license and another project was started to create an open version of it (Open Motif). You could develop a program which dynamically linked to either as long as you followed the terms of at least one of those projects. If someone compiled your code against Motif, you (as the author) weren't suddenly bound to buy a several thousand dollar license because someone else chose to link against that particular library.
What it all ultimately comes down to is how you define derivative work. Creating a static binary doesn't necessarily make your work derivative but you may not have the right to distribute that binary (because copyright restricts what you can distribute and without permission, whether a work is derivative or not, you can't distribute someone else's work). We've already seen that a dynamically linked library may not be a source of derivation if the functionality is duplicated elsewhere... so, it comes down to how unique the library and the way you're using it are and ultimately, that is up to a court to decide. Further, the FSF maintains that the GPL doesn't restrict use, only distribution. Therefore, if I use GPL code (by dynamically linking to it), as long as I'm not distributing it, I should be in the clear. Redhat, Ubuntu, etc may have some problems if they distribute both my work and the GPL work I link to, however. Even then, there are ways around this (a benefit of Gentoo... they distribute one part and I have to manually request the other part. Both are then compiled and linked on my machine, meaning that Gentoo didn't distribute it as such and I created the derivative work for my own use. As long as I don't distribute it, I'm in the clear according to the GPL).
I will agree that it is definitely safest to assume that dynamic linking creates a derivative work, but that may not be true in some specific case and even then, there are ways to get around it. Of course, IANAL, I just play one on Slashdot.
393 4848 40829
grep "version 2"
217 2878 22629
So, it would seem that 217 files are GPL2+ and and 176 GPL2(only) as far as KDE is concerned. However, KDE is built on QT which is licensed as grep "version 2"
994 10962 104446
grep "version 2"
0 0 0
So it would seem that QT is GPL2 only. A quick scan of a couple header files notes that
** This file may be used under the terms of the GNU General Public
** License version 2.0 as published by the Free Software Foundation
** and appearing in the file LICENSE.GPL included in the packaging of
** this file. Please review the following information to ensure GNU
** General Public Licensing requirements will be met:
** http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/opensource/ So... if you can somehow mix the KDE parts that are GPL2+ without using the QT library at all and without using the KDE parts that are GPL2(only), you're safe to mix GPL3 code with KDE. Good luck with that, though.
I think the other issues can be disregarded, since they are either "peanuts" (i.e. having a school board election is a local issue so big mass media is not interested and we are talking about a limited number of voters anyway; even if they concur, I'd say it'd be good enough to process, say, presidentials and senatorial votes first, and then everything else), or are properly managed anywhere else (do you think 10 parties is a mess? Try any european democracy! you will find parties by the dozens).
The thing is, in theory, your state and local politicians are supposed to have a bigger effect on your life than the federal level ones... That rarely seems to be the case these days, but if you combine that notion with the fact that, especially at the town or county level, you might personally know the person running, many people care about the local elections more. Also, prior to the 17th Amendment, Senators were chosen by the state legislators rather than direct election. I'm personally not so sure that changing them to direct election was the right idea.
Why the heck the country of the liberties allow for mass media big corps to control the election day? It seems quite counterproductive to announce east coast results when polls are still open on west coast? I don't buy your assertion about "people want results ASAP" but I see is CNN and the likes the ones that want results ASAP. And even then, I know that in EU, even with dozen of parties and three or four electoral process concurring, counting by hand doesn't take so much than your mechanical methods (I know my president in no more time than it takes to know yours... in fact much less in your two last presidentials). Well, I admit everything is a little easier from the press point of fiew in EU since we are only three hours apart from east to west instead of six.
The east coast has the world's financial center, the US capital and all the country's major news headquarters. The elitists in those places already believe the world revolves around them so they want the winner before they go to bed. The media coverage (controlled by those people) is just a reflection of that. I'm not so sure the average adult (also remember, only 40% or so of them vote) feels they have to know the results that night.
Your method of "the winner takes all" for presidentials at the state level means that even if there are 100.000.000 of voters, all the show can come down to a short bunch of geographically agregated votes (like those from Florida in last two presidentials) so even a minimal margin for fraud (like about five counties in the whole USA) can make an enormous difference (on a non-geographycally bound electorial process of course you can get a winner by a single vote, but then you won't know it in advance and it makes one-by-one precinct fraud procedures almost absolutly irrelevant). But then it clearly works *against* any centrally controlled counting procedures ("centrally" meaning here things like all ballots going to single point to be processed, or a single vendor producing voting machines). I don't think there's a valid software-based voting procedure yet, and specially those based or including a voting receipt which are basically flawed by design by the very begining, but even then, it would be easy to apply some on those methods in old Europe than in USA.
Not every state uses the winner takes all method for electoral votes, though the vast majority do. As for the Electoral College, it reduces the odds of voter irregularities causing the entire election to come into doubt and ensures that you can't win by just catering to a few populous cities while ignoring the needs of the rest of the country. If it were strictly the popular vote that counted, you would have people screwing around with the vote in places that the media doesn't provide much coverage... stuff the ballot box in places like Alcova, WY (just a random town in the middle of nowhere I picked off google maps) and who would know? The vast major
I probably don't understand in its enterity the voting system of the USA but what I don't really understand is what the problem is with just manually counting all the f* ballots! It is a highly parallelizable task which means it really doesn't matter if we are talking about 10.000 or 100.000.000 votes; just allow for about 1000 to 5000 votes for voting box and as many voting boxes as needed and you will be done in about two/three hours from the closing of the last voting box.
At the Federal level, every two years, there is an election for the House of Representatives. Twice in six years, you will have a vote for Senate in your state (2 Senators per state, each with a 6 year term. Terms are staggered so that every 2 years, 1/3rd of the Senate is up for election). There's also a Presidential vote every 4 years. Every even numbered year, you will have at least two federal offices on the ballot, but usually all three.
Now, it can vary a little at the state level. Here in NY, we have a State Senator and State Representative up for election every 2 years. Every 4 years, we also have several state offices like Governor, Attorney General and Comptroller. Those 4 year offices are held in the non-Presidential even year here (last one being 2006). Also, there is usually 1-2 referendums on the ballot.
Then, some counties have an election to pick a legislature... some do a Board of Supervisors instead (the Town Supervisor of each town holds a seat on the Board). In addition to that, there are also elections for County Justices, Coroner, Sheriff, Animal Warden, Clerk, etc. You might have another 6 or more offices here. Sometimes, counties may have a referendum on something like raising the sales tax rate as well.
Finally, you get down to the city/town/village level. In my town, the Supervisor, 5 board members with a 2 year term (3 one year, 2 the next), Highway Superintendent, 2 Justices and Clerk. If you live in the village, in addition to the above, you also get to elect a Mayor.
There are also school elections (board members and budget approval), but those are conducted during a different session for just school related stuff.
All together, there may be as many as 20 different offices/issues to vote on in a given year... Now, election day is a big deal. Talk radio is usually all election centric, whether a national or local show. The 24 hours news tv channels are 95% election (and 100% election between about 6pm eastern time until the national winners are called). Local news interrupts their shows to show local coverage starting around 9pm (poll closing time) and going until the major local races are resolved and even prior to that, they're often cutting to campaign headquarters to show their moods as election day goes on.
So... all the hype and media pressure makes people want results ASAP. Many times, the results of east coasts states are announced before the polls close out west (each state has their own poll closing time based on their local time, it isn't a standard closing time country wide) and sometimes (2000 Florida for example), they will announce their expected result "accidentally" before all the polls are even closed in that state. That reporting alone can cause people to not bother voting because "the polls are already pointing to who is going to win anyway."
So, the reason why people (especially the media who is busy selling ad time for all the people glued to the tv/radio) want mechanical/electronic/scanned/whatever voting is so they can have instantaneous results for those 20 ballots they cast and know who won before they go to bed at 11 or 11:30pm. Even if you divide each precinct into 1000 voters, you're still looking at potentially 20,000 votes to hand count before 11pm (because people don't want to just know who the new President will be, they also want to see if their friend won for the Town Board). Ohio is a key swing state and they're on Central time so they only have one hour to count the votes before the east
Where I vote, we're asked our name and sign next to it in a book. There's no way to know how I voted or if I abstained (we're still using the old lever machines and an abstain is simply going in, shutting the door and opening it back up without pulling any levers... it tallies you on the total voters counter but doesn't tally on the individual counters). In fact, there are usually a lot of local races with only one person running and if I don't know that person or I think they're an idiot, I will deliberately abstain for just that office.
That said, anyone can go in and check the books to see who voted... my dad worked for the town highway department and their boss (which is an elected position) would give them the day off iff they voted (which he could verify with the voter rolls). Of course, he had no way of knowing who they voted for.
I'm arguing that it's not the end of the world if they do that you seem to think of it. And I think you're minimizing the impact it could have on people. Right now, you can tell your spouse, parent, boss, whatever that you voted the way they wanted you to and there's nothing they can do to prove it. If you even offer receipts to take from the polling station, it becomes "You will vote the way I want and you will show me the receipt. Failure to do either will result in [X]."
Giving people proof they voted isn't going to bring the world to a conspiracy colapse that you're predicting. Who said anything about a conspiracy? I know people who grew up in highly partisan families who were expected to vote exactly how their family told them to, period. One friend was married and 25ish before she finally voted opposite her parents. Even then, she felt the need to lie to them so they wouldn't shun her. I'm not talking about some grand conspiracy... and I'm not suggesting it would create a new crime. Family members who threaten to abuse someone if they don't vote a certain way and/or do abuse them if they don't show their receipt or their receipt shows an opposite vote are already committing a crime or are likely to be if it is physical abuse we're talking about.
...if I were exit polled, I'd deliberately give false answers to poison the data because I believe exit polling is inherently flawed to begin with. And it's people with attitudes like that which make it "inherently flawed to begin with. 1) people shouldn't be compiling info on a vote in progress. Nobody needs to know which way the polls are tilting 12 hours before the polls close. If we have to wait until the next morning to get a result, that's fine with me... it would prevent the media from trying to interfere with the vote in subtle, and sometimes not so subtle (such as calling an election before all the polls have closed), ways.2) there is sample bias produced by the exit poll takers. For example, a college male is more likely to ask an attractive female how she voted (so he gets a chance to talk to her) than he is another demographic. A 20 year old female is more likely to vote a certain way, so they're a more predictable vote to begin with... it is only if they don't vote the way you think they will that they're an interesting demographic to poll and if that's the case, a lot of other demographics will be showing even more extreme statistics.
3) Along the lines of #2, some people feel threatened by someone asking them their vote and will succumb to peer pressure in reporting it. Those people are more likely to tell the exit poll taker what they think the exit poll taker wants to hear rather than their real vote, especially if they're casting a minority vote in their area (someone in San Francisco may say they voted for the liberal rather than the conservative they really voted for in order to avoid a possible confrontation)
4) You have people that will deliberately give false information to poison the data (whether I do it or not doesn't matter because other people are doing it... I would just poison it a little more)
5) To "correct" things like the stuff above, you need to normalize your data... that said, how do you know exactly how to normalize it? There are tons of factors in why you're getting the result you are and it can be especially hard to analyze in real time on the day of the election. Besides, what good is a poll where you have to fudge the data to get the results you want, especially when there is a real poll with data that isn't so manipulatable* that your fudged poll is supposed to be guessing the outcome of.
Yeah... it's possible to manipulate the ballot box and that's the core problem with our voting systems. Fixing that is outside the scope of my reply to you.
And when it is your parent or spouse doing it, that fine, a felony conviction and/or any jail time will probably have a major negative impact on the rest of your life... much more negative than just voting how they told you to and showing them the receipt.
It would probably have an effect on exit polling too... only count the votes of the receipts people let you see. I've never been exit polled since my district always splits in the ballpark of 75/25 on state/federal level offices, but if I were exit polled, I'd deliberately give false answers to poison the data because I believe exit polling is inherently flawed to begin with.