I was going to suggest that. But then we have a smaller minority that is blind and does not read braille. The principal remains the same but on a smaller scale.
Given the responses I'm seeing I apparently have to include a disclaimer here:
I am not advocating any particular solution; I am not even sure there is really such a great problem. I am only pointing out the principals that afford a basis for the LWV's stance.
The "limitations" are not in the players, they are in DRM. Time will prove that nobody ever pays for DRM-protected content once.
Besides, there's a growing amount of legit free spoken word in mp3.
Of course it's ugly...it looks like one of those late-90s-era dedicated email devices, what did they call em? Net appliance, yeh! A lot of burned early adopters might prefer a different look.
All of this verbiage gives little attention to the core issue raised by the article: that the paper receipt which, as you say, "could be handed
to an election worker to read for those who are blind" diminishes the right to a private vote, unless the voter chooses to forego verification (thereby diminishing his right to have his vote count).
As said earlier, simple solutions are great. But the rule of law is not always simple. You've addressed the overall purpose of these measures in an election, but not their role with regard to the individual.
As everyone has equal rights to vote, everyone's rights must be protected equally. At the same time, everyone has an equal privilege to the privacy of the vote. If a blind person can't read the receipt, he has to choose either less privacy (by having someone verify it) or less protection (by not doing so). It definitely creates a disparity of privilege for the individual.
How do you figure?
If your assumption is that their horrible experience with OSS will send them running back to MS, isn't that what would happen to all the market share that they are so worried about?
Actually, it's easy as pie to change a Nextel plan in mid-month, but they made it policy not to do so because:
1. Poorly trained/terminally stupid agents do it wrong and bills can get badly messed up.
2. Terminally stupid customers can't follow their (admittedly arcane) bills when pro-rated amounts appear on them.
When I was working call center duty for Nextel, I recall one paticular call. A customer whose name matched another customer received a $500 deposit return that was not hers. This customer's bills averaged around 40-50 a month, a very modest amount at NXTL.
She called in; told a CSR about the check. She was given an address to return it. She did so, kept her money order receipt and a mail receipt.
The next bill she received charged her $500 debit amount. She called and was told don't worry, it takes time. The time stretched on. Her bill became past due, she called, was told don't worry. They turned the phone off. She called, got it turned back on, and a ticket was made to investigate the misplaced check. Nobody thinks to take the charge off her bill, even though it's clear this was money Nextel sent to her for no reason, and that she has returned.
Time stretched on. Another month goes by, the bill is coming due again. Another check arrives, the other party's deposit sent to the wrong address AGAIN. This time she sends the check back to Nextel with the bill. OK? No, not okay bcause two things occur.
1. The person investigating the returned check sees in the record that the customer has submitted a $500 check as payment, decides that must be the same check (though the dates make NO sense). She closes the record.
2. The bill that follows carries abother $500 debit.
This call did not start well for me, because I am looking at the past record, with notes like "I have CONFIRMED that she has SUBMITTED THE CHECK WITH PAYMENT. Do NOT issue CREDIT!!!" Customer is very upset and combative (understandably), because she has called so may times on this and NXTL has screwed up on every turn, so it's difficult getting the straight story of what haooened from her.
At some point she realizes it actually is my intention to help, so it gets a littl easier. I get the full story and I can see from the record that it al makes sense. We've been holding $600 of this woman's money for over 6 months at this point and I get the distinct impression that $500 isn't chump change to her, this is all her walking around money and then some.
So. Because my limit is $200 or thereabouts I have to get a supervisor's approval. Well, they've been cost-cutting. There's one sup on the floor, and she is getting yelled at by a customer at the moment thank you.
Now I've worked hard to gain the customer's trust, I am not gonna leave her in the shit again at this point, and she and I wait for about 30 minutes.
Suo gets off the phone, comes by, and I have to explain what happened 3 times before she grasps it. And says no credit.
It becomes a raging argument. The call ends with the customer still out $500 through no fault of her own. I write up a trouble ticket with top priority flagged, for whatever good that will do.
A week later I'm pared out, because of my "insubordination," because my call times are too high, and because they are sending most of the center's jobs to Canada.
I worked there 7 years. Before that I was a writer and editor for 20 years, until I was totally burned out in the magazine business.
I have no idea where I go from here. At 55 I am living in my sister's basement for chrissakes. Nothing like taking shit from the mediocrities who handle management at a call center to break your confidence.
Get hold of yourself, gramps. The "Ummm....no" method of correcting people is almost as annoying as "Bzzzzt....wrong answer." Making a joke about "Ummm nazis" is probably the gentlest way of pointing this out.
On topic: CD Duplicators are for mass producing many copies of a single disk image, this is not at all what you want to do.
I would recommend that you just take normal care with your disks for two to six more years, storage media that will allow you to back up your disks in a much more compact and speedier medium is certain to arrive, though which of several technologies it will be is yet to be determined.
From ircnet.org:
There is some confusion about which the "Official IRCnet page" is. The answer is simple, there isn't one. To have an official page would imply that one group of people were in control of IRCnet and this isn't the case so in reflection of this there are a few pages out there that represent IRCnet. IRCnet.org (this page) is maintained by the original IRC operators and is aimed more towards linking up various user pages in a simple and easy to use way, whereas IRCnet.com is shiny and corporate looking and concentrates more on the actual network.
Mostly I agree with your analysis of the piece, but I do wonder why my Googles on "William A. Bierman," "William Bierman"+IRC and Bierman+IRC provide nary a clue of this guy's expertise in the realm of IRC software.
The greatest threat to file-trading in newsgroups is the user. alt.binaries.movies.divx has lately been getting flooded with captured TV shows (post that these are off-topic and you are an ingrate whiner); it will soon be as unwieldy and unfocussed as alt.binaries.multimedia.
And here's the page where you can download the Elysian Fields performance mentioned in the article.
As it says on the page:
"shows will be uploaded to eMusic within thirty-six-hours after a set's final song." So, you'll be recovered from your hangover by the time it's ready for download...
Since the program is being administered by Emusic, whose business heretofore has been selling mp3's through the web, you probably will be able to download at home. There already are a number of emusic-only live concert recordings available (including one by my fave band the Handsome Family).
It's the Sendo lawsuit against Orange over IP theft.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/31059.html
The really interesting aspect is that Sendo is suing the little guy, Orange, for something that they previously said was the work of Microsoft (stealing their technology). The court case will be very interesting if the would-be DRM kingpin is made out to be an IP thief.
What? you think the register made up a denial of a hard drive problem? Why would they do such a thing? WHat is their motivation? The Register at least attempted to contact the three manufacturers involved, which is more than you'll find in the vaguely-sourced initial story.
WMA? Odd, then that this is not played up in the coverage as being the real news behind this move. Real and Microsoft were in a death-battle over rm vs wma as the standard rights-protected format, I thought. This sounds like Real Networks' final confession of defeat.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the responses I'm seeing I apparently have to include a disclaimer here:
I am not advocating any particular solution; I am not even sure there is really such a great problem. I am only pointing out the principals that afford a basis for the LWV's stance.
The post I responded to addresses most every voter-verifed ballot issue except the one at the crux. That is what I was pointing out.
Of course it's ugly...it looks like one of those late-90s-era dedicated email devices, what did they call em? Net appliance, yeh! A lot of burned early adopters might prefer a different look.
I think this is the sticking point for the LWV.
As everyone has equal rights to vote, everyone's rights must be protected equally. At the same time, everyone has an equal privilege to the privacy of the vote. If a blind person can't read the receipt, he has to choose either less privacy (by having someone verify it) or less protection (by not doing so). It definitely creates a disparity of privilege for the individual.
They were opposed to all the poor suffraging women, of course. I bet you're one of the big causes of women's suffraging!
Actually, it's easy as pie to change a Nextel plan in mid-month, but they made it policy not to do so because: 1. Poorly trained/terminally stupid agents do it wrong and bills can get badly messed up. 2. Terminally stupid customers can't follow their (admittedly arcane) bills when pro-rated amounts appear on them.
When I was working call center duty for Nextel, I recall one paticular call. A customer whose name matched another customer received a $500 deposit return that was not hers. This customer's bills averaged around 40-50 a month, a very modest amount at NXTL.
She called in; told a CSR about the check. She was given an address to return it. She did so, kept her money order receipt and a mail receipt.
The next bill she received charged her $500 debit amount. She called and was told don't worry, it takes time. The time stretched on. Her bill became past due, she called, was told don't worry. They turned the phone off. She called, got it turned back on, and a ticket was made to investigate the misplaced check. Nobody thinks to take the charge off her bill, even though it's clear this was money Nextel sent to her for no reason, and that she has returned.
Time stretched on. Another month goes by, the bill is coming due again. Another check arrives, the other party's deposit sent to the wrong address AGAIN. This time she sends the check back to Nextel with the bill. OK? No, not okay bcause two things occur.
1. The person investigating the returned check sees in the record that the customer has submitted a $500 check as payment, decides that must be the same check (though the dates make NO sense). She closes the record.
2. The bill that follows carries abother $500 debit.
This call did not start well for me, because I am looking at the past record, with notes like "I have CONFIRMED that she has SUBMITTED THE CHECK WITH PAYMENT. Do NOT issue CREDIT!!!" Customer is very upset and combative (understandably), because she has called so may times on this and NXTL has screwed up on every turn, so it's difficult getting the straight story of what haooened from her.
At some point she realizes it actually is my intention to help, so it gets a littl easier. I get the full story and I can see from the record that it al makes sense. We've been holding $600 of this woman's money for over 6 months at this point and I get the distinct impression that $500 isn't chump change to her, this is all her walking around money and then some.
So. Because my limit is $200 or thereabouts I have to get a supervisor's approval. Well, they've been cost-cutting. There's one sup on the floor, and she is getting yelled at by a customer at the moment thank you.
Now I've worked hard to gain the customer's trust, I am not gonna leave her in the shit again at this point, and she and I wait for about 30 minutes.
Suo gets off the phone, comes by, and I have to explain what happened 3 times before she grasps it. And says no credit.
It becomes a raging argument. The call ends with the customer still out $500 through no fault of her own. I write up a trouble ticket with top priority flagged, for whatever good that will do.
A week later I'm pared out, because of my "insubordination," because my call times are too high, and because they are sending most of the center's jobs to Canada.
I worked there 7 years. Before that I was a writer and editor for 20 years, until I was totally burned out in the magazine business.
I have no idea where I go from here. At 55 I am living in my sister's basement for chrissakes. Nothing like taking shit from the mediocrities who handle management at a call center to break your confidence.
To sum up, NXTL's no exception.
Get hold of yourself, gramps. The "Ummm....no" method of correcting people is almost as annoying as "Bzzzzt....wrong answer." Making a joke about "Ummm nazis" is probably the gentlest way of pointing this out. On topic: CD Duplicators are for mass producing many copies of a single disk image, this is not at all what you want to do. I would recommend that you just take normal care with your disks for two to six more years, storage media that will allow you to back up your disks in a much more compact and speedier medium is certain to arrive, though which of several technologies it will be is yet to be determined.
From ircnet.org: There is some confusion about which the "Official IRCnet page" is. The answer is simple, there isn't one. To have an official page would imply that one group of people were in control of IRCnet and this isn't the case so in reflection of this there are a few pages out there that represent IRCnet. IRCnet.org (this page) is maintained by the original IRC operators and is aimed more towards linking up various user pages in a simple and easy to use way, whereas IRCnet.com is shiny and corporate looking and concentrates more on the actual network.
Mostly I agree with your analysis of the piece, but I do wonder why my Googles on "William A. Bierman," "William Bierman"+IRC and Bierman+IRC provide nary a clue of this guy's expertise in the realm of IRC software.
You're thinking NNTP and standard newsreader. Their "quickvue" service was web-based.
Examine the thread you are posting in, this subdiscussion concerns a TV news channel, not the NYT. The ISP is suing the prosecuter, check it out.
The greatest threat to file-trading in newsgroups is the user. alt.binaries.movies.divx has lately been getting flooded with captured TV shows (post that these are off-topic and you are an ingrate whiner); it will soon be as unwieldy and unfocussed as alt.binaries.multimedia.
And here's the page where you can download the Elysian Fields performance mentioned in the article. As it says on the page: "shows will be uploaded to eMusic within thirty-six-hours after a set's final song." So, you'll be recovered from your hangover by the time it's ready for download...
Since the program is being administered by Emusic, whose business heretofore has been selling mp3's through the web, you probably will be able to download at home. There already are a number of emusic-only live concert recordings available (including one by my fave band the Handsome Family).
Who evaluated that engine? I have a million dollars in prizes in my pants.
Sendo Lawsuit.
It's the Sendo lawsuit against Orange over IP theft. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/31059.html
The really interesting aspect is that Sendo is suing the little guy, Orange, for something that they previously said was the work of Microsoft (stealing their technology). The court case will be very interesting if the would-be DRM kingpin is made out to be an IP thief.
What? you think the register made up a denial of a hard drive problem? Why would they do such a thing? WHat is their motivation? The Register at least attempted to contact the three manufacturers involved, which is more than you'll find in the vaguely-sourced initial story.
WMA? Odd, then that this is not played up in the coverage as being the real news behind this move. Real and Microsoft were in a death-battle over rm vs wma as the standard rights-protected format, I thought. This sounds like Real Networks' final confession of defeat.