In fact the earliest story I recall (can't remember the name) had a religious figure raise the zombies - kind of like the biblical stories. But the point is, the zombie is controlled externally, and discards logic. Seeking what it lacks (brains) it destroys others. Sounds like a fundy to me (of any stripe:-).
What you describe sounds completely unlike any Biblical stories I've ever heard...
I think, ideally, the last mile would be municipally owned, and they then lease the lines to $small_ISP of your choice, at a flat rate. That's the only way I can see a bunch of ISPs working out.
Count them manually first. If the machines agree with each other but disagree with the manual count, manually count them again. If you're sure of your manual count and the machines disagree, find out why.
1. In the event of a recount, can I get repeatable results?
They should test this with sample ballots. Scan the same set of ballots hundreds of times on different machines, prior to the election. There should be no discrepancies. The margin of error should be zero. If one machine counts one vote incorrectly, don't pay for the machines until the problem is identified and fixed and the test is run again (with a different set of sample ballots).
2. In the event of a "software bug" can I hold someone responsible, will they pay for the cost of a reelection?
These are optical scan machines. In the event of a software bug that causes votes to be miscounted, the bug can be fixed and the paper ballots can be recounted. In the mean time, the ballots can be counted by hand at the company's expense. No reelection is necessary.
3. In the event of a hardware failure, can I hold someone responsible, are there contingency plans, will someone pay the cost of a reelection?
The contingency plan is, you collect the paper ballots in a securely locked box, and count them later.
This is for an optical-scan voting machine. It scans a paper ballot. The paper ballot can be re-counted later - by hand if necessary. No additional audit trail is necessary.
You should be able to take the scanned ballots out of the machine, run them through another machine, and compare the totals. If you do this a dozen times on different machines, and the totals are off by one single vote, there's a serious problem.
I should point out that iTunes offers exactly what you're asking for.
Since you mentioned Firefly, I'll use Dollhouse as an example: Season 2 is available in HD for $32.99, or standard definition for $22.99. This works out to $2.54/$1.77 per episode (or you can buy individual episodes for $2.99/$1.99). The first four episodes are available now; if you subscribe, you'll get those now, and the remaining episodes will automatically download as they become available.
You can keep the files forever, however they are DRM-encrypted, and will only play on Apple's stuff (iTunes, QuickTime, iPod, iPhone, AppleTV) and only for as long as Apple continues to support the iTunes Store (I can't imagine them pulling the plug within the next two decades, but after that all bets are off). However, you can authorize multiple devices to play your media, and Apple's DRM works a hell of a lot better than pretty much any other DRM system on the market. iTunes is required, of course; I don't know how well the Windows version runs under WINE on Linux, but only Mac OS X and Windows (XP and later) are officially supported.
The problem, of course, is that while I wouldn't mind paying $23 for a few months of entertainment, it's not the only show I want to watch. House is $59.99/$39.99 for HD/standard. Family Guy is $49.99/$39.99. Stargate: Universe is $53.99/$35.99. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report run about $10/month each. Pretty soon you're spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on something that's currently free (with minimal ads) on Hulu!
On the other hand, the HD versions of all the shows I mentioned total less than $35/month. How does that compare to cable/satellite TV?
I have a Nokia N75. The built-in browser is so bad, it's basically unusable. The rendering engine is OK (it's based on WebKit), but after you've loaded a couple of pages, the browser runs out of memory and won't load anything else until you reboot the phone.
I'm using Opera Mini, which works surprisingly well considering what it is. However, it's still somewhat cumbersome.
Supposedly, this phone is supposed to allow me to check my e-mail. I've never been able to get it to work. At all. If I could get it to work, it probably wouldn't work well enough to be really convenient.
I don't have an iPhone because when I was in the market for a new phone, the iPhone didn't support some of the features I needed (tethering is an absolute must for me, and I do actually use several of the items on the above list on occasion). I plan to hang onto my current phone until AT&T opens up tethering sometime next year, and then finally put an end to the frustration.
In what universe is it acceptable for vendor A to modify vendor B's software on User C's (i.e. my) computer?
Probably the universe in which User C goes out of their way to install Vendor B's software, knowing full well that Vendor B has included an add-on mechanism that allows for third parties such as Vendor A to create extensions that augment the behavior of Vendor B's software.
That Vendor A would slip such an extension into the installer for a security patch to Vendor A's software, without the knowledge of User C, is of course a problem. That problem has already been discussed at length.
Company abused its position and put malware on users' machines.
Careful. The term "malware" is short for "malicious software". Maliciousness is the intent to deliberately harm others. This add-on isn't malicious, it's just buggy and misguided.
Except if it was so terrifying, why did she do everything but call the police, who have the powers to actually investigate things like this and would have probably figured out in about 5 minutes who sent the emails?
Because she's a moron. I'd be willing to bet she comes from a background of low income and poor education. Just like the majority of other Americans.
Children in certain subcultures are taught to fear the police, not to turn to them for help. This is partly because the people around them are stupid, partly because the people around them are often involved in criminal activity, and partly because the police sometimes abuse their authority. Regardless, the result is that when those children grow up to become adults, it doesn't even occur to them that the police would be the appropriate people to call in a situation like this.
CAN-SPAM defines spam as "any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service". Technically, while the purpose of this marketing campaign was to promote Toyota's cars to Ms. Duick's friend, the purpose of these e-mail messages was to scare the crap out of Ms. Duick.
In my view, the primary purpose of the messages Toyota sent to the victim was not the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service. Therefore, CAN-SPAM does not apply.
And neither does the license they tricked her into agreeing to. I hope she wins the suit.
So far the best you can do is break it so it doesnt ever work.
Do you mean delete the application, or delete the rendering engine library? If you delete the library, thousands of other applications that use that library for various things will break; is that what you want?
If you mean delete the application, Windows 7 already lets you do that, exactly the same way you'd uninstall, say, Solitaire.
Properly designed web sites use the tools available to them (including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, etc.) to create an intuitive and user-friendly interface.
Poorly designed web sites use the tools available to them (including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, etc.) to create an obnoxious piece of crap that should make the designers ashamed of themselves (but doesn't).
Malicious web sites use the tools available to them (including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, etc.) to inflict harm upon the user.
Boycotting the tools because the latter two categories exist just doesn't strike me as a great plan.
Number 1 rule to make sure something ships on Apple iPhone platform or even OS X is: Keep your mouth shut up about it. Especially if you do "workaround" kind of stuff.
Kinda hard to sell a product that you can't tell anybody about, isn't it?
Facebook shows me targeted ads, with an opportunity to give feedback; if I don't like an ad, I can indicate not just that I don't like it, but why. The ads are unobtrusive: they're off to the side, out of the way of the content, and they don't blink at me. I rarely see ads for stupid crap I have no interest in (with the exception of Facebook's mobsters game).
It can be a little creepy though. The other day I replied to a comment from a friend who happens to be black and female. Facebook immediately showed me an ad for a black dating site. This could have been coincidental, but it was the first time I'd seen that particular ad...
Similarly, I can imagine a kid who sits in the back of the class sending text messages and chewing gum saying, "Why would I go out of my way to try to figure out what this nutjob teacher is saying? If my stoner friends tell me that learning is for losers, and I have no idea why you are trying to make me literate and numerate, then your teaching has completely failed, and you need to rethink it."
The kid sitting in the back of the room can stop sending text messages and just listen to the information being presented to him. When I do the equivalent, I learn is that people are protesting outside the G20 summit. That's more than I would know if I wasn't paying attention, but it doesn't tell me why they're protesting.
My classmate NoYob raised his hand and said he can't figure out what they're protesting about. The response he got included a link to a web page that repeats the question, but then just complains that the G20 members haven't consulted with us first. It also included a link to a radio report that lists some of the groups involved: Code Pink is protesting war funding, Pittsburgh United says they're not really protesting, and G6-Billion is apparently annoyed that only the world's top 20 economic leaders are meeting to discuss economic issues, and not the entire population. There will be a several other groups there, with lots of speakers and apparently an African dance group and some Buddhist monks.
These people say they want to make the world a better place, and that's great, but... my questions remain unanswered!
1) Are they protesting the existence of the G20?
2) The G20 is a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 economies. These people have important jobs to do, trying to improve the global economy and make sure we don't enter into a depression. Are the protesters suggesting that the G20 members shouldn't talk to each other? That's stupid.
3) Are the protesters upset that the political leaders of these countries are coming to Pittsburgh, instead of just the financial leaders (i.e. President Obama met with his counterparts, rather than just Ben Bernanke meeting with his)?
4) Are the protesters suggesting that the G20 is doing a bad job of directing the economy, and they should be replaced by another group that can do it better? OK, but most of these people are either elected to office, or appointed by elected officials, in their own countries. If you have a problem with the way your country chooses its leaders, fine, go protest that.
5) What specifically do the protesters think the G20 should be doing differently?
6) Are the protesters angry at the G20? Are they angry at something else? If they're angry at something else, why are they protesting at the G20?
7) Do you think the G20 members know why people are protesting? I still don't; do you think your message has reached them more effectively than it has reached me?
It's always good to re-evaluate strategies, but it's not for you to say so. It is yours to listen for once.
I've listened, and I still don't know why you're protesting. I'd say there's a fair chance that the G20 members don't know why you're protesting either. If that's the case, complaining that they aren't listening is just dumb, and your strategy sucks.
Yes, certainly that's precisely what one would think if one made no attempt whatsoever to research the event or the movement beyond asking a third party for a hearsay opinion on slashdot. And why would you?
Exactly: why would I go out of my way to try to figure out why some nutjobs are doing what they're doing? If I hear about the police using rubber bullets and sound canons and whatever else, but I have no idea why you were protesting, then your protest has completely and utterly failed, and you need to rethink your strategy.
Are you just.. generally protesting the existence of the G20? OK, but... should the leaders of these countries not talk to each other about economic issues? Do you have any constructive recommendations? What should they be doing differently? Are you angry about something? Is this really the most appropriate forum to display your anger? Do you think the G20 leaders know why you're protesting?
I don't understand the obsession with short boot times.
Most of us keep our machines running all the time. I would think a quicker return from suspend or hibernate would be more useful.
Hibernation just saves the contents of RAM to disk, then turns off the system. When you turn it back on, it still has to go through POST before it can load everything back into RAM. This new BIOS should let you start resuming from hibernation in one second too.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact the earliest story I recall (can't remember the name) had a religious figure raise the zombies - kind of like the biblical stories. But the point is, the zombie is controlled externally, and discards logic. Seeking what it lacks (brains) it destroys others. Sounds like a fundy to me (of any stripe :-).
What you describe sounds completely unlike any Biblical stories I've ever heard...
I think, ideally, the last mile would be municipally owned, and they then lease the lines to $small_ISP of your choice, at a flat rate. That's the only way I can see a bunch of ISPs working out.
The city of Ashland in southern Oregon does precisely this.
Count them manually first. If the machines agree with each other but disagree with the manual count, manually count them again. If you're sure of your manual count and the machines disagree, find out why.
1. In the event of a recount, can I get repeatable results?
They should test this with sample ballots. Scan the same set of ballots hundreds of times on different machines, prior to the election. There should be no discrepancies. The margin of error should be zero. If one machine counts one vote incorrectly, don't pay for the machines until the problem is identified and fixed and the test is run again (with a different set of sample ballots).
2. In the event of a "software bug" can I hold someone responsible, will they pay for the cost of a reelection?
These are optical scan machines. In the event of a software bug that causes votes to be miscounted, the bug can be fixed and the paper ballots can be recounted. In the mean time, the ballots can be counted by hand at the company's expense. No reelection is necessary.
3. In the event of a hardware failure, can I hold someone responsible, are there contingency plans, will someone pay the cost of a reelection?
The contingency plan is, you collect the paper ballots in a securely locked box, and count them later.
This is for an optical-scan voting machine. It scans a paper ballot. The paper ballot can be re-counted later - by hand if necessary. No additional audit trail is necessary.
You should be able to take the scanned ballots out of the machine, run them through another machine, and compare the totals. If you do this a dozen times on different machines, and the totals are off by one single vote, there's a serious problem.
I should point out that iTunes offers exactly what you're asking for.
Since you mentioned Firefly, I'll use Dollhouse as an example: Season 2 is available in HD for $32.99, or standard definition for $22.99. This works out to $2.54/$1.77 per episode (or you can buy individual episodes for $2.99/$1.99). The first four episodes are available now; if you subscribe, you'll get those now, and the remaining episodes will automatically download as they become available.
You can keep the files forever, however they are DRM-encrypted, and will only play on Apple's stuff (iTunes, QuickTime, iPod, iPhone, AppleTV) and only for as long as Apple continues to support the iTunes Store (I can't imagine them pulling the plug within the next two decades, but after that all bets are off). However, you can authorize multiple devices to play your media, and Apple's DRM works a hell of a lot better than pretty much any other DRM system on the market. iTunes is required, of course; I don't know how well the Windows version runs under WINE on Linux, but only Mac OS X and Windows (XP and later) are officially supported.
The problem, of course, is that while I wouldn't mind paying $23 for a few months of entertainment, it's not the only show I want to watch. House is $59.99/$39.99 for HD/standard. Family Guy is $49.99/$39.99. Stargate: Universe is $53.99/$35.99. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report run about $10/month each. Pretty soon you're spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on something that's currently free (with minimal ads) on Hulu!
On the other hand, the HD versions of all the shows I mentioned total less than $35/month. How does that compare to cable/satellite TV?
It's almost as if they don't want people to follow the series.
Sounds like what Fox did to Firefly...
I have a Nokia N75. The built-in browser is so bad, it's basically unusable. The rendering engine is OK (it's based on WebKit), but after you've loaded a couple of pages, the browser runs out of memory and won't load anything else until you reboot the phone.
I'm using Opera Mini, which works surprisingly well considering what it is. However, it's still somewhat cumbersome.
Supposedly, this phone is supposed to allow me to check my e-mail. I've never been able to get it to work. At all. If I could get it to work, it probably wouldn't work well enough to be really convenient.
I don't have an iPhone because when I was in the market for a new phone, the iPhone didn't support some of the features I needed (tethering is an absolute must for me, and I do actually use several of the items on the above list on occasion). I plan to hang onto my current phone until AT&T opens up tethering sometime next year, and then finally put an end to the frustration.
Since when does a US carrier "add value" in any sense of the word?
AT&T did "add value" with the iPhone, by implementing visual voicemail.
And it could have a little cartoon logo that resembles the Prophet himself...
In what universe is it acceptable for vendor A to modify vendor B's software on User C's (i.e. my) computer?
Probably the universe in which User C goes out of their way to install Vendor B's software, knowing full well that Vendor B has included an add-on mechanism that allows for third parties such as Vendor A to create extensions that augment the behavior of Vendor B's software.
That Vendor A would slip such an extension into the installer for a security patch to Vendor A's software, without the knowledge of User C, is of course a problem. That problem has already been discussed at length.
Company abused its position and put malware on users' machines.
Careful. The term "malware" is short for "malicious software". Maliciousness is the intent to deliberately harm others. This add-on isn't malicious, it's just buggy and misguided.
This paranoia is the fault of the dipshit idiot populous that elects idiots into the government and then ceases to think for themselves.
I believe you'll find that you've got these two items in reverse order.
Except if it was so terrifying, why did she do everything but call the police, who have the powers to actually investigate things like this and would have probably figured out in about 5 minutes who sent the emails?
Because she's a moron. I'd be willing to bet she comes from a background of low income and poor education. Just like the majority of other Americans.
Children in certain subcultures are taught to fear the police, not to turn to them for help. This is partly because the people around them are stupid, partly because the people around them are often involved in criminal activity, and partly because the police sometimes abuse their authority. Regardless, the result is that when those children grow up to become adults, it doesn't even occur to them that the police would be the appropriate people to call in a situation like this.
I don't think so, and here's why:
CAN-SPAM defines spam as "any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service". Technically, while the purpose of this marketing campaign was to promote Toyota's cars to Ms. Duick's friend, the purpose of these e-mail messages was to scare the crap out of Ms. Duick.
In my view, the primary purpose of the messages Toyota sent to the victim was not the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service. Therefore, CAN-SPAM does not apply.
And neither does the license they tricked her into agreeing to. I hope she wins the suit.
I just want to be able to DELETE IE completely.
So far the best you can do is break it so it doesnt ever work.
Do you mean delete the application, or delete the rendering engine library? If you delete the library, thousands of other applications that use that library for various things will break; is that what you want?
If you mean delete the application, Windows 7 already lets you do that, exactly the same way you'd uninstall, say, Solitaire.
Welcome back to the 1990s.
Properly designed web sites use the tools available to them (including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, etc.) to create an intuitive and user-friendly interface.
Poorly designed web sites use the tools available to them (including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, etc.) to create an obnoxious piece of crap that should make the designers ashamed of themselves (but doesn't).
Malicious web sites use the tools available to them (including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, etc.) to inflict harm upon the user.
Boycotting the tools because the latter two categories exist just doesn't strike me as a great plan.
Number 1 rule to make sure something ships on Apple iPhone platform or even OS X is: Keep your mouth shut up about it. Especially if you do "workaround" kind of stuff.
Kinda hard to sell a product that you can't tell anybody about, isn't it?
Facebook shows me targeted ads, with an opportunity to give feedback; if I don't like an ad, I can indicate not just that I don't like it, but why. The ads are unobtrusive: they're off to the side, out of the way of the content, and they don't blink at me. I rarely see ads for stupid crap I have no interest in (with the exception of Facebook's mobsters game).
It can be a little creepy though. The other day I replied to a comment from a friend who happens to be black and female. Facebook immediately showed me an ad for a black dating site. This could have been coincidental, but it was the first time I'd seen that particular ad...
Those who study history are doomed to know it's repeating.
Similarly, I can imagine a kid who sits in the back of the class sending text messages and chewing gum saying, "Why would I go out of my way to try to figure out what this nutjob teacher is saying? If my stoner friends tell me that learning is for losers, and I have no idea why you are trying to make me literate and numerate, then your teaching has completely failed, and you need to rethink it."
The kid sitting in the back of the room can stop sending text messages and just listen to the information being presented to him. When I do the equivalent, I learn is that people are protesting outside the G20 summit. That's more than I would know if I wasn't paying attention, but it doesn't tell me why they're protesting.
My classmate NoYob raised his hand and said he can't figure out what they're protesting about. The response he got included a link to a web page that repeats the question, but then just complains that the G20 members haven't consulted with us first. It also included a link to a radio report that lists some of the groups involved: Code Pink is protesting war funding, Pittsburgh United says they're not really protesting, and G6-Billion is apparently annoyed that only the world's top 20 economic leaders are meeting to discuss economic issues, and not the entire population. There will be a several other groups there, with lots of speakers and apparently an African dance group and some Buddhist monks.
These people say they want to make the world a better place, and that's great, but... my questions remain unanswered!
1) Are they protesting the existence of the G20?
2) The G20 is a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 economies. These people have important jobs to do, trying to improve the global economy and make sure we don't enter into a depression. Are the protesters suggesting that the G20 members shouldn't talk to each other? That's stupid.
3) Are the protesters upset that the political leaders of these countries are coming to Pittsburgh, instead of just the financial leaders (i.e. President Obama met with his counterparts, rather than just Ben Bernanke meeting with his)?
4) Are the protesters suggesting that the G20 is doing a bad job of directing the economy, and they should be replaced by another group that can do it better? OK, but most of these people are either elected to office, or appointed by elected officials, in their own countries. If you have a problem with the way your country chooses its leaders, fine, go protest that.
5) What specifically do the protesters think the G20 should be doing differently?
6) Are the protesters angry at the G20? Are they angry at something else? If they're angry at something else, why are they protesting at the G20?
7) Do you think the G20 members know why people are protesting? I still don't; do you think your message has reached them more effectively than it has reached me?
It's always good to re-evaluate strategies, but it's not for you to say so. It is yours to listen for once.
I've listened, and I still don't know why you're protesting. I'd say there's a fair chance that the G20 members don't know why you're protesting either. If that's the case, complaining that they aren't listening is just dumb, and your strategy sucks.
Yes, certainly that's precisely what one would think if one made no attempt whatsoever to research the event or the movement beyond asking a third party for a hearsay opinion on slashdot. And why would you?
Exactly: why would I go out of my way to try to figure out why some nutjobs are doing what they're doing? If I hear about the police using rubber bullets and sound canons and whatever else, but I have no idea why you were protesting, then your protest has completely and utterly failed, and you need to rethink your strategy.
Are you just.. generally protesting the existence of the G20? OK, but... should the leaders of these countries not talk to each other about economic issues? Do you have any constructive recommendations? What should they be doing differently? Are you angry about something? Is this really the most appropriate forum to display your anger? Do you think the G20 leaders know why you're protesting?
I don't understand the obsession with short boot times.
Most of us keep our machines running all the time. I would think a quicker return from suspend or hibernate would be more useful.
Hibernation just saves the contents of RAM to disk, then turns off the system. When you turn it back on, it still has to go through POST before it can load everything back into RAM. This new BIOS should let you start resuming from hibernation in one second too.
Good. Many women would disapprove, and far too many men wouldn't respect their disapproval.
Is she OK with this?