It's just a variation on sales tax, present in many states as a "use tax" and mostly affecting mail-order. Very rarely enforced, and a tremendous number of people must violate it out of ignorance. The only major enforcement exception I can think of is purchasing cars -- in the Chicago area, out-of-state car dealers advertise their lower tax rates, but when you come back to IL they tag you on registering it. Chicago sales tax is now around 8%?
More interesting (to me:) is why we tolerate sales tax at all. You get taxed coming -- income tax -- and going -- sales tax. In theory maybe a sale tax is an incentive to save, but I think it's just a way to disguise the total tax burden. Kudos to the states that skip it, although some (Oregon) appear to be going bankrupt and may have to reconsider. The other approach is the value-added tax popular in Europe, like a national sales tax. I don't know how well it works.
The problem is that people tend to trust machines, for some bizarre reason. Just because the machine isn't subject to emotional bias doesn't mean it's output is worth anything. Polygraphs are barred from use in the courtroom -- because of their unreliability AND tendency to unduly influence the proceedings -- yet the government is using them with abandon as we get tough on terrorism by treating citizens like suspects.
Polygraph administration and analysis turns out to have huge subjective factors despite attempts to appear otherwise. Some people are especially accomplished liars; it doesn't hurt to be a sociopath who really doesn't have any emotional reaction.
Perhaps this system will have some use -- let's remember that even the standard Voight-Kampff got beat! (why did Deckard press on with 2x more Q's?) -- but I hope it and other techno-gadgets don't lessen emphasis on good old-fashioned security and common sense.
Apple does have a monopoly over "Macintosh" computers because they won't sell licenses. They relaxed their hold for a few years and allowed clones, then changed their mind. There is now no way to build a legal clone, except maybe to cannibalize a working computer for the proprietary parts. If you need a Mac-compatible computer, you must go to Apple, and with it you'll get their OS, too.
A monopoly is not illegal unless abused in some way. Microsoft's monopoly over Windows is not per se illegal. But their attempt to leverage IE by using their monopoly power was, obviously, improper. That IE is free changed nothing -- rather, it underscored that IE was getting a free ride thanks to the underlying profitable monopoly.
Now, within the market of Mac-compatible computers, I'm wondering how Apple bundling more and more products into its ubiquitous OS could not eventually cause the same sort of problem. Unlike what Microsoft was doing by "integrating" Windows, the Apple components are pretty easily to deactivate. However, the Apple products are clearly intended to be competitive, and at some point Apple might be said to abuse its monopoly over Macs to shoehorn in other things.
It's difficult to imagine, mostly because they're not Microsoft, but what if Apple were to squeeze out competitiors by embedding the free stuff or refusing to publish its API's and so on? The millions of Mac users can't just switch to another OS without getting a new computer, and their choices would end up being Apple's choices. [Now that there is a robust open source browser market developing, I don't think browsers will be the next battleground.]
A reliable source mentioned to me a while ago that Opera was negotiating with Apple for a place on their desktop. Perhaps at the time Apple was debating whether to re-enter the browser market after having abruptly jilted poor old Cyberdog, and was contemplating an alliance outside of IE. So maybe Opera felt it had some assurances in place that their product would get a needed boost from Apple and relied on that to develop Mac product that was otherwise not worth the trouble, and maybe Apple pulled a fast one. Apple has been known to undermine developers in the past, and while it certainly has the right to do so it shouldn't deliberately alienate them. I know Apple feels it has to keep its next "killer app" under wraps until the next MacWorld, but there must be ways to telegraph intentions (or sign NDA's) with allies w/o tipping off competitors.
All guesses. But it does make Opera look less irrational.
Was back when I thought it took a great deal of time and effort to develop a high-performance browser, and bought Opera's performance claims. Then I met Chimera Navigator. Whatever happens, I think the for-profit model of browser development is dead.
Yes, but fraud and error are common to *all* methods of registrations, not uniquely motor voter.
Anyone from Chicago (me) can tell you that multiple voting ("vote early, vote often") and dead people have gone on for a long time, and often that's not fixed because it benefits the politicians in power. Registration by mail has been available for some time in many states (also now required by motor voter, I didn't know that); at least at the DMV, you have the registrant face-to-face with ID in their hand. I'm intrigued by the critics who say the state can't verify identity (as opposed to eligibility to vote) at the DMV -- who the hell are the states passing out driver's licenses to? Terrorists, in the case of 9/11. Their uncertainty as to identity is a separate problem.
Voter eligibility must be verified, usually after the form is submitted, which is why most states require you to register, say, a month before the election. (ND doesn't require registration at all!) Whether they do their duty is up to them. That some complain about motor voter because they are now "overwhelmed" by applications from their own citizens is shameful. As for the ones who examined their rolls and found multiple registrations and dead peopl, well, good -- isn't examining their rolls what they're supposed to do anyway? Shouldn't they question their own procedures if such contamination continues? How is motor voter to blame for their carelessness, and how many of the bogus registrations predate motor voter? The critics drone on about how terrible registration fraud is -- and I agree -- while assuming rather than proving the act's causality.
Politicially, I can tell you that most of the (quiet) resistance in Congress to motor voter was from Congresspeople fully aware that greater registration would hurt their party (greater registration and turnout reliably favor Democrats -- quite reasonably, opponents of the law charged supporters with being politically motivated, and I'm sure they partially were). The fraud complaint was an insincere or inconsistent argument that goes more to altering some specifics of the law, not its fundamental thrust. Perhaps the best argument IMHO was that Congress shouldn't be telling the states how to handle its voting registration, though I think the law strikes an appropriate balance given historic federal intervention in voting practices to fix state tendencies to erect hurdles to maintain the status quo.
To give you an idea of the political nature of the resistance, some states read the NVRA as requiring them only to register people for federal elections, misleading some to half-register and be able to vote only a partial ballot!
More details. At a minimum the act makes life a lot easier for people like me who move from state to state and appreciate uniform requirements. I doubt the law is perfect, esp. as it is still quite young, but endorse of the basic premise that registration should be simple and convenient, as well as accurate. Increasing registration may or may not yet be producing more voters, but I can say from experience that the potential for get-out-the-vote drives is much greater when most people are eligible rather than being precluded by something they forgot to do a months earlier (and get-out-the-vote people can skip the extra get-people-registered drive). The only way to overcome voter apathy, the principal cause of low turnout, is to draw more and more citizens into the process so that voting becomes easy, familiar, and desired.
Yes, but what I *meant* was to find out exactly what his rights, obligations, time limits were.:) Some cards also offer certain extra warranties. I was also *assuming* the buyer had at least taken a stab at working things out with the merchant and been blown off. Some people are shy, of course....
What a pain disputes like this are -- and they discourage people from doing mail order business.
"All sales final" *never* includes deception (esp. used v. new!). Talk to your credit card company first, the seller second, an attorney or small claims court third. (I should ask, is there any chance this was shipping damage? Talk to the shipping company.) Check with the BBB, file a complaint with the FTC and your AG, etc. Stress the implied warranties of fitness and merchantibility, etc., and... good luck. By making a stink you may at the very least help out the next sucker, um, customer. In the future, well, you've learned the same way I have that dealing with reputable companies is worth a few extra $$$.
I don't understand the problem, though -- the microsono site shows the StepUp 1-year ltd. warranty. Refusal to honor that warranty of course gives you an excellent claim, and remember that some of the warranty's restrictive terms may not be vlaid in your state.
Re registration rates, I have collected signatures in the past and was impressed by the number of people who came forward to ask for voter registration forms. States vary a lot is their procedures for registration. Clearly certain members of Congress knew that easy registration leads to more voting and opposed the "motor voter law" that allows registration at any DMV. (Weak official reasons to oppose the law, such as concern about voter fraud, were also offered.) People who are less educated or welathy vote less, and not because they are less American. So from experience I wouldn't say 1/3 of the population "have decided not to vote." I would like see the numbers of voters if everyone were automatically registered, or could so so instantly at the polling place.
Re VAP, read the FEC link I provided. Note also that aliens in the VAP are unable to vote whether they are present legally or illegally, and in 1994 aliens over 18 numbered 13 million. Disenfranchised prisoners and former prisoners number a few million. Meanwhile, military abroad are counted for some purposes and not others, but either way number only in the hundreds of thousands. Read the FEC link I provided for more detail, as you clearly have not.
Not so -- maybe in your state, but not everywhere.
The practice varies by state, as state law determined the right to vote within constitutional limits. According to this recent study 14 still permanently disenfranchise ex-felons. Forty-six disenfranchise inmates, and a slightly smaller number do so for those on parole/probation. According to the source, these add up to about 4 million people who cannot vote. The U.S. has one of highest imprisonment rates in the world, and certain groups are affected more than others (e.g., blacks, Hispanics, men, the poor). This practice may have given President Bush the edge in Florida, esp. if as alleged it was overapplied.
Vocab: Ex-felon is a kind of dated term for convicts who've done their time. I don't know of a better one offhand except the similar "ex-con."
There have been unsuccessful constitutional challenges to this practice. IMHO, having studied election law extensively, there is no sufficient justification: the right to vote is an essential democratic right -- and ex-cons get their other full civil rights restored on release -- and disenfranchisement is unlikely a serious deterrent from crime. Supposedly inmates and former criminals might "vote the wrong way," but that's as unproven as deterrent and the single worst reason because it excludes people from voting based on their imagined views.
Hovering around 50% for many years actually -- for the Presidential elections only -- and there are several factors in the way the statistic is calculated that tend to make it underestimate voter participation. The percentage is based on the number of votes cast for the principal office on the ballot divided by the VAP (Voting Age Population). The first number may be a bit low because, according to the FEC, about 2% of voters "fail" to vote for the highest office (I know of a couple of people who did this in the last election because they were disgusted with the choices, but did vote in other races), and the VAP is concededly larger than the number of people truly eligible to vote (millions of noncitizens, illegal aliens, ex-felons, and so on, are indeed "voting age"). Of that number, a somewhat smaller percentage is registered. So, if a 50% turnout is reported based on VAP, the turnout of registered voters may be more like 70%.
Turnout for primaries and local elections can fall *really* low.
I'm describing this because election theory is a personal interest, and because election stats are often misused to try to prove political arguments. The VAP problem shows how little the press knows what they're talking about. But I suppose Election 2000 cleared up the press's competence clearly enough. (Have you heard of VNS? Another wellspring of disaster. Groan.)
ANYWAY, the relevant point is that there's no obvious reason to assume that Mac users vary from the population at large. Many are too young or have other disabilities preventing voting. Some don't show up to vote. Also, I have no idea what Apple's 5% of computer sales translates into as a percentage of individuals. Nor are we users complete slaves: only some of us would vote for Jobs. It's thus a very long shot that Mac users would come anywhere near the 19% of turnout that went for Perot. Perhaps, joined by enough others, they could form the nucleus of a significant bloc. (I wonder what kind of candidate Jobs would make? I'm sure it would be interesting, but I'd rather he stay with Apple.)
I remember an early student-designed experiment (early 80's?) involving bees; the bees did pretty well I think. I see they're sending spice bees (carpenter bees) on STS-107, Columbia. Here is the official NASA description.
I'm sure this has been thought of, but what if the bees escape? The females do sting. So there would be some interesting footage of astronauts chasing and avoiding a swarm of weightless, disoriented, pissed, and space sick bees. Could be interesting. Bug spray would be right out as an option.:) I wonder if NASA classes live bees as a hazardous cargo.
The current Perot community, of the one in 1992? In '92 he drew a whopping 19% of the popular vote, though an unknown fraction of these were protest or strategic votes. That was the best 3rd-party performance since 1912 (and Teddy Roosevelt wasn't *really* in a third party). Well, I was surprised, and so was (ex-)President Bush.
The difficult calls are over the gray area, which begs the question of who decides what's in and what's out, and what "appeal" procedures are available, say to a librarian who can issue an on-the-spot waiver. i relish the idea of going to a librarian to ask if I could "please" see a site.
Google currently claims to be indexing 3 billion pages. The size of the task is unbelievable.
The most important thing of course is how asinine the idea of filtering libraries is. It's not the librarians asking for this. I hope the First Amendment deep sixes it, and then we'll only deal with wonky filters if we choose to. To the extent that local libraries and schools want to filter what is appropriate for children, they can make that call on their own, perhaps subscribing to a trusted-source whitelist; this is appropriate only because children have reduced 1st A. rights. Whatever happens, and I'm talking to the would-be censors, don't condemn the adults to seeing nothing more than what is fit for children (see Supreme Court decision in Pacifica).
when a shuttle accdient is no more vividly remembered than a plane crash
Cute. Also true.
The shuttle explosion was a loss of innocence, perhaps kind of minor in retrospect but a big shock at the time. We'd never lost anyone in flight before, and the accident changed our space program fundamentally. Challenger eventually stood also for a massive governmental failure. It was *not* just about 7 people getting needlessly killed, and certainly not about money. I remember a friend flipping out at how the Times used up the first six pages solid on the accident, while people were dying by the hundreds or thousands in Columbian mudslides. She was right in a moral sense about what counted, but deaf in an emotional sense to those around her. (I gotta say that 6 pages was hugely excessive!)
I don't have any concrete answers why we feel differently about the deaths of strangers, and even less how we "should" feel. The death of a stranger can sometimes be more traumatic than the death of someone you know. But they're not all the same.
Heck, I even remember where I was when Reagan got shot, and I didn't even like him. It was a significant event in history, though kind of a footnote to JFK's assassination.
I support space exploration, but not manned space exploration. The cost effectiveness of unmanned spacecraft has been well demonstrated, and these programs were badly hurt by the Shuttle, I can tell you from hearing from the people who worked on them. (I grew up near JPL.)
The teacher-in-space program may inadvertently illustrate what an extravagance manned space exploration is and backfire. Remember all the criticism when they sent John Glenn up? At least he was a former astronaut, and they performed lots of medical experiments on the "first gerry in space." I'm not sure what a schoolteacher brings to the program except an opportunity for propaganda, and I suspect at least some people will see through that and say we aleady have enough things that need money on terra firma -- ironically, spending on education is among the msot prominent. Also, it's not that the money is that much relative to what ground-based problems need, but if it is a waste it is a waste, and if it diverts attention from more important (if boring) issues, it is a tragedy. Perhaps it can be defended as simple entertainment, but I don't feel the gov't is in the business of entertaining us, and not at such risk and cost.
If I were NASA, I would stress the economic and scientific payoff of the program. In some cases cases having a human in orbit is valuable, but we could scale back to meet those needs. The Shuttle has failed to meet its promise as a cost-effective way to move things to and from orbit, and it was the vain effort to prove otherwise that was a major factor in the fateful "go" decision in the Challenger launch. (The military quietly abandoned the Shuttle after that.) For pursuing our dreams -- well, it may be a lot cheaper, produce better science, and save lives to rethink those dreams.
This is not a "troll," just a plea for getting the most bang for the buck. I would like to see swarms of probes throught the solar system, something humans will not do for many, many years. The "gee whiz" factor of men and women in space is of little lasting value, and Mars can wait.
Those cameras are proliferating in the States -- they turn out to be wonderful moneymakers -- and are fairly controversial. There has even been some question whether they improve safety, because motorists who know the cameras are there sometimes behave recklessly to beat the red light or slam on the brakes. I'm waiting to see statistics.
Anyway, I'm almost certain the images are still processed by humans. I'm sure there will be some reluctance to handing is over to a computer, but I was just speculating it would happen. And apparently is has. Now, with a system like that -- plenty of cameras already installed -- why bother with tire chips?
Here is an example of what you describe, I think. I also see via Google various reference to these systems being used in the U.S. -- going back a couple of years! But I'm sure I haven't read about them, only the human mediated system used by Lockheed, which runs the cameras in our area by contract.
The idea that privacy is already gone and we should "get over it" is absolute idiocy.
Gee, thanks.:)
My point was different: I think fighting tire chips is silly because the state already has plenty of alternatives. We can't stop it because it's already happened, and making a protest over some token new item is a waste of time; we might as well accept whatever benefits we can get.
The prevalence of video cameras makes me skeptical that law enforcement would bother assembling the database and tearing up all the streets when they already have a great system of tracking -- license plates. It wasn't widely discussed, but the snipers' license plates were run something like 9 times and their plate was photographed by a red light camera in the weeks they were doing their thing. If we had known what we were looking for we would have caught them earlier; meanwhile, law enforcement was apparently running the plates on no specific suspicion (remember, everyone said we were looking for a white truck). So... how often do average citizens have their plate checked? I bet it's a lot, now that squad cars have computers and constant wireless links. And every time they do, it's a record of where the car was at what time. Next, the cameras will do this work automatically. Screw the tire chips.
The Fourth Amendment is no help, because the Supreme Court ruled 20 years ago that the police could place a tracking device on your care without a warrant (!). I doubt exterior surveillance by camera would raise a constitutional problem, though I do hope that the Supreme Court will at some point look at the aggregate of all these little intrusions and conclude that an overall police state is unconstitutional. However, that would inject them into government in a way the Court does not want; and they've been fairly indifferent to privacy (notwithstanding the surprise thermal imaging decision).
So the effort of privacy advocates must be in legislation. The courts won't do it, and avoiding Michelin tires definitely won't do it. I'm hardly advocating acquiescence, just not tilting at windmills.
This decision was mentioned a few days ago in the Times I think, and the intent to transmit tire pressures was specified. As for privacy problems, I think it's a little premature. Anyone close enough to scan your "tire chips" could just write down or photograph your license plate anyway (thouse red light cameras come pretty close), and soon enough with OCR traffic cameras will be able to record your passing. So anonymity in public is a fleeting thing anyway, and the Fourth Amendment won't stop it.
Also, it is easy enough to buy tires anonymously by using the green stuff.
To protect privacy, campaigning has to focus on the weak leak: The government. That the administration would even propose TIA reflects a serious problem already; privacy is the orphan right.
You misunderstand -- Apple could "kill" Chimera by giving the latter's developers the impression that there's no need to contune because their browser is not different enough or that the remaining market share is too slight. There are other forms of competition than profit. Internet Explorer is free -- you don't think Microsoft intends to use it as a tool to dominate the market?
If the developers choose to shut down the Chimera project, it would be a shame, but it would be their decision. To blame that decision on Apple is ridiculous.
If the developers decide to shut down Chimera because of the Safari release, where the the hell would you assign the "blame" but Apple? It's not much of a blame -- the product is replaced and users come out in roughly the same place -- but you still see it would be a "shame." Apple is increasingly absorbing the types of applications with wide enough audiences to attract good developers, and here would be undermining an open source developer to boot. I don't think an all-Apple software world is a good thing. Although I think Apple is doing a great job, and I am benefitting from their products, it would be very foolish not to consider the impact of their expansion on the development community as a whole, which for the Mac is small to begin with.
Of course, I find something I love and *Apple* of all companies threatens to kill it, indirectly.
I've been using Chimera Navigator for months, forgetting altogether IE (the real villain IMHO). I suppose the sole question for the Chimera team on whether to continue is whether *their* shadowy objectives are being met. The results in the time frame of the effort so far has been impressive -- no, stunning -- much more than a build-a-brower this weekend kind of thing. It really is Mac software.
The single best thing I can say about Chimera -- and there are many nice things, more so now that I've gotten around to poking around with 3rd party mods like SpeedChimera and "PDF Plugin" -- is that I've mostly forgotten about it. That is, it works like the Finder or some other utility that you take for granted and don't give much thought. That's what I've wanted, not the fickle and feature-encrusted IE, just something simple and clean and fast. Safari will learn (has learned?) a few things from Chimera, which tells you something about the latter's value and why it would be a shame to lose the lead-by-example prominence of Chimera.
Which brings up another question -- which is the "real" Bible? King James? RSV? Reader's Digest (the one with 7 commandments)? How about the Latin one all this stuff replaced? And the Greek texts? And so on.
Never mind. The King James will always be the moetht lhyricul.
Seriously, in the U.S. we just recently had a paralytic dockworkers' strike. I don't think they'd be amused by this labor-saving innovation. Not that I think people should be kicked out of jobs by robots.
Each of their mooring magnets generates a 1-tesla magnetic field. (from NS article)
WOW! That's strong. I used to work with a 1.5-T superconductor magnet, an MRI scanner, and it had a heck of a pull. Enough so that people have been injured or killed when a piece of metal got loose. It took three of us to pull off the base of an IV pole (no one inside at the time). Some of the research magnets are 4-T or more. But these are all superconductors, and act like permanent magnets. The resisitive magnets here must produce tons of heat while gobbling electricity. Surely "auto-dock" wouldn't be too hard to design., with mechanical restraints?
Hey, I'll vote that they decided for Disney, in a metaphorical sense. I think Lessig isn't gloomy enough.
I really don't think the Court thought of it as a gift to Disney, but their decision was between commercial interests (Disney) and the public domain (plus relatively small commercial interests in creating derivative works), and they inclined towards the former.
Because they approved of the retroactive application, an either/or decision, they had the power to repeal that aspect of the Bono Act. The life+70 term would have stood, but Mickey would be free, at least in his old flicks. And there the error was not so much deference to Congress as logical strangeness -- copyright law (some of us thought) is supposed to inspire creative talent before the work is created, not extend monopolies long after the creation. Worse, they blew off the relevance of the First Amendment, questioning the right to speak the words of others and saying fair use would suffice. Of course, we're losing fair use...
The Court did not rule specifically on the maximum number of years allowed, and even had the question been presented, a hands-off attitude would have been best. We've seen the Supreme Court in the past be too combative with Congress on judgment calls, as during the New Deal. They renounced that course a long time ago -- though it has reappeared a bit under the guise of federalism.
Anyway, too much detail. I'm kind of thinking aloud.:) Here were the Qs formally decided:
1. Did the D.C. Circuit err in holding that Congress has the power under the Copyright Clause to extend retroactively the term of existing copyrights? ["NO"]
2. Is a law that extends the term of existing and future copyrights "categorically immune from challenge[] under the First Amendment"? ["ALMOST"]
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It's just a variation on sales tax, present in many states as a "use tax" and mostly affecting mail-order. Very rarely enforced, and a tremendous number of people must violate it out of ignorance. The only major enforcement exception I can think of is purchasing cars -- in the Chicago area, out-of-state car dealers advertise their lower tax rates, but when you come back to IL they tag you on registering it. Chicago sales tax is now around 8%?
:) is why we tolerate sales tax at all. You get taxed coming -- income tax -- and going -- sales tax. In theory maybe a sale tax is an incentive to save, but I think it's just a way to disguise the total tax burden. Kudos to the states that skip it, although some (Oregon) appear to be going bankrupt and may have to reconsider. The other approach is the value-added tax popular in Europe, like a national sales tax. I don't know how well it works.
More interesting (to me
The problem is that people tend to trust machines, for some bizarre reason. Just because the machine isn't subject to emotional bias doesn't mean it's output is worth anything. Polygraphs are barred from use in the courtroom -- because of their unreliability AND tendency to unduly influence the proceedings -- yet the government is using them with abandon as we get tough on terrorism by treating citizens like suspects.
Polygraph administration and analysis turns out to have huge subjective factors despite attempts to appear otherwise. Some people are especially accomplished liars; it doesn't hurt to be a sociopath who really doesn't have any emotional reaction.
Perhaps this system will have some use -- let's remember that even the standard Voight-Kampff got beat! (why did Deckard press on with 2x more Q's?) -- but I hope it and other techno-gadgets don't lessen emphasis on good old-fashioned security and common sense.
Apple does have a monopoly over "Macintosh" computers because they won't sell licenses. They relaxed their hold for a few years and allowed clones, then changed their mind. There is now no way to build a legal clone, except maybe to cannibalize a working computer for the proprietary parts. If you need a Mac-compatible computer, you must go to Apple, and with it you'll get their OS, too.
A monopoly is not illegal unless abused in some way. Microsoft's monopoly over Windows is not per se illegal. But their attempt to leverage IE by using their monopoly power was, obviously, improper. That IE is free changed nothing -- rather, it underscored that IE was getting a free ride thanks to the underlying profitable monopoly.
Now, within the market of Mac-compatible computers, I'm wondering how Apple bundling more and more products into its ubiquitous OS could not eventually cause the same sort of problem. Unlike what Microsoft was doing by "integrating" Windows, the Apple components are pretty easily to deactivate. However, the Apple products are clearly intended to be competitive, and at some point Apple might be said to abuse its monopoly over Macs to shoehorn in other things.
It's difficult to imagine, mostly because they're not Microsoft, but what if Apple were to squeeze out competitiors by embedding the free stuff or refusing to publish its API's and so on? The millions of Mac users can't just switch to another OS without getting a new computer, and their choices would end up being Apple's choices. [Now that there is a robust open source browser market developing, I don't think browsers will be the next battleground.]
A reliable source mentioned to me a while ago that Opera was negotiating with Apple for a place on their desktop. Perhaps at the time Apple was debating whether to re-enter the browser market after having abruptly jilted poor old Cyberdog, and was contemplating an alliance outside of IE. So maybe Opera felt it had some assurances in place that their product would get a needed boost from Apple and relied on that to develop Mac product that was otherwise not worth the trouble, and maybe Apple pulled a fast one. Apple has been known to undermine developers in the past, and while it certainly has the right to do so it shouldn't deliberately alienate them. I know Apple feels it has to keep its next "killer app" under wraps until the next MacWorld, but there must be ways to telegraph intentions (or sign NDA's) with allies w/o tipping off competitors.
All guesses. But it does make Opera look less irrational.
Was back when I thought it took a great deal of time and effort to develop a high-performance browser, and bought Opera's performance claims. Then I met Chimera Navigator. Whatever happens, I think the for-profit model of browser development is dead.
Yes, but fraud and error are common to *all* methods of registrations, not uniquely motor voter.
Anyone from Chicago (me) can tell you that multiple voting ("vote early, vote often") and dead people have gone on for a long time, and often that's not fixed because it benefits the politicians in power. Registration by mail has been available for some time in many states (also now required by motor voter, I didn't know that); at least at the DMV, you have the registrant face-to-face with ID in their hand. I'm intrigued by the critics who say the state can't verify identity (as opposed to eligibility to vote) at the DMV -- who the hell are the states passing out driver's licenses to? Terrorists, in the case of 9/11. Their uncertainty as to identity is a separate problem.
Voter eligibility must be verified, usually after the form is submitted, which is why most states require you to register, say, a month before the election. (ND doesn't require registration at all!) Whether they do their duty is up to them. That some complain about motor voter because they are now "overwhelmed" by applications from their own citizens is shameful. As for the ones who examined their rolls and found multiple registrations and dead peopl, well, good -- isn't examining their rolls what they're supposed to do anyway? Shouldn't they question their own procedures if such contamination continues? How is motor voter to blame for their carelessness, and how many of the bogus registrations predate motor voter? The critics drone on about how terrible registration fraud is -- and I agree -- while assuming rather than proving the act's causality.
Politicially, I can tell you that most of the (quiet) resistance in Congress to motor voter was from Congresspeople fully aware that greater registration would hurt their party (greater registration and turnout reliably favor Democrats -- quite reasonably, opponents of the law charged supporters with being politically motivated, and I'm sure they partially were). The fraud complaint was an insincere or inconsistent argument that goes more to altering some specifics of the law, not its fundamental thrust. Perhaps the best argument IMHO was that Congress shouldn't be telling the states how to handle its voting registration, though I think the law strikes an appropriate balance given historic federal intervention in voting practices to fix state tendencies to erect hurdles to maintain the status quo.
To give you an idea of the political nature of the resistance, some states read the NVRA as requiring them only to register people for federal elections, misleading some to half-register and be able to vote only a partial ballot!
More details. At a minimum the act makes life a lot easier for people like me who move from state to state and appreciate uniform requirements. I doubt the law is perfect, esp. as it is still quite young, but endorse of the basic premise that registration should be simple and convenient, as well as accurate. Increasing registration may or may not yet be producing more voters, but I can say from experience that the potential for get-out-the-vote drives is much greater when most people are eligible rather than being precluded by something they forgot to do a months earlier (and get-out-the-vote people can skip the extra get-people-registered drive). The only way to overcome voter apathy, the principal cause of low turnout, is to draw more and more citizens into the process so that voting becomes easy, familiar, and desired.
Yes, but what I *meant* was to find out exactly what his rights, obligations, time limits were. :) Some cards also offer certain extra warranties. I was also *assuming* the buyer had at least taken a stab at working things out with the merchant and been blown off. Some people are shy, of course....
What a pain disputes like this are -- and they discourage people from doing mail order business.
"All sales final" *never* includes deception (esp. used v. new!). Talk to your credit card company first, the seller second, an attorney or small claims court third. (I should ask, is there any chance this was shipping damage? Talk to the shipping company.) Check with the BBB, file a complaint with the FTC and your AG, etc. Stress the implied warranties of fitness and merchantibility, etc., and ... good luck. By making a stink you may at the very least help out the next sucker, um, customer. In the future, well, you've learned the same way I have that dealing with reputable companies is worth a few extra $$$.
I don't understand the problem, though -- the microsono site shows the StepUp 1-year ltd. warranty. Refusal to honor that warranty of course gives you an excellent claim, and remember that some of the warranty's restrictive terms may not be vlaid in your state.
Re registration rates, I have collected signatures in the past and was impressed by the number of people who came forward to ask for voter registration forms. States vary a lot is their procedures for registration. Clearly certain members of Congress knew that easy registration leads to more voting and opposed the "motor voter law" that allows registration at any DMV. (Weak official reasons to oppose the law, such as concern about voter fraud, were also offered.) People who are less educated or welathy vote less, and not because they are less American. So from experience I wouldn't say 1/3 of the population "have decided not to vote." I would like see the numbers of voters if everyone were automatically registered, or could so so instantly at the polling place.
Re VAP, read the FEC link I provided. Note also that aliens in the VAP are unable to vote whether they are present legally or illegally, and in 1994 aliens over 18 numbered 13 million. Disenfranchised prisoners and former prisoners number a few million. Meanwhile, military abroad are counted for some purposes and not others, but either way number only in the hundreds of thousands. Read the FEC link I provided for more detail, as you clearly have not.
Not so -- maybe in your state, but not everywhere.
The practice varies by state, as state law determined the right to vote within constitutional limits. According to this recent study 14 still permanently disenfranchise ex-felons. Forty-six disenfranchise inmates, and a slightly smaller number do so for those on parole/probation. According to the source, these add up to about 4 million people who cannot vote. The U.S. has one of highest imprisonment rates in the world, and certain groups are affected more than others (e.g., blacks, Hispanics, men, the poor). This practice may have given President Bush the edge in Florida, esp. if as alleged it was overapplied.
Vocab: Ex-felon is a kind of dated term for convicts who've done their time. I don't know of a better one offhand except the similar "ex-con."
There have been unsuccessful constitutional challenges to this practice. IMHO, having studied election law extensively, there is no sufficient justification: the right to vote is an essential democratic right -- and ex-cons get their other full civil rights restored on release -- and disenfranchisement is unlikely a serious deterrent from crime. Supposedly inmates and former criminals might "vote the wrong way," but that's as unproven as deterrent and the single worst reason because it excludes people from voting based on their imagined views.
Hovering around 50% for many years actually -- for the Presidential elections only -- and there are several factors in the way the statistic is calculated that tend to make it underestimate voter participation. The percentage is based on the number of votes cast for the principal office on the ballot divided by the VAP (Voting Age Population). The first number may be a bit low because, according to the FEC, about 2% of voters "fail" to vote for the highest office (I know of a couple of people who did this in the last election because they were disgusted with the choices, but did vote in other races), and the VAP is concededly larger than the number of people truly eligible to vote (millions of noncitizens, illegal aliens, ex-felons, and so on, are indeed "voting age"). Of that number, a somewhat smaller percentage is registered. So, if a 50% turnout is reported based on VAP, the turnout of registered voters may be more like 70%.
Turnout for primaries and local elections can fall *really* low.
I'm describing this because election theory is a personal interest, and because election stats are often misused to try to prove political arguments. The VAP problem shows how little the press knows what they're talking about. But I suppose Election 2000 cleared up the press's competence clearly enough. (Have you heard of VNS? Another wellspring of disaster. Groan.)
ANYWAY, the relevant point is that there's no obvious reason to assume that Mac users vary from the population at large. Many are too young or have other disabilities preventing voting. Some don't show up to vote. Also, I have no idea what Apple's 5% of computer sales translates into as a percentage of individuals. Nor are we users complete slaves: only some of us would vote for Jobs. It's thus a very long shot that Mac users would come anywhere near the 19% of turnout that went for Perot. Perhaps, joined by enough others, they could form the nucleus of a significant bloc. (I wonder what kind of candidate Jobs would make? I'm sure it would be interesting, but I'd rather he stay with Apple.)
I remember an early student-designed experiment (early 80's?) involving bees; the bees did pretty well I think. I see they're sending spice bees (carpenter bees) on STS-107, Columbia. Here is the official NASA description.
:) I wonder if NASA classes live bees as a hazardous cargo.
I'm sure this has been thought of, but what if the bees escape? The females do sting. So there would be some interesting footage of astronauts chasing and avoiding a swarm of weightless, disoriented, pissed, and space sick bees. Could be interesting. Bug spray would be right out as an option.
The current Perot community, of the one in 1992? In '92 he drew a whopping 19% of the popular vote, though an unknown fraction of these were protest or strategic votes. That was the best 3rd-party performance since 1912 (and Teddy Roosevelt wasn't *really* in a third party). Well, I was surprised, and so was (ex-)President Bush.
I only *wish* there were that many Mac nuts!
The difficult calls are over the gray area, which begs the question of who decides what's in and what's out, and what "appeal" procedures are available, say to a librarian who can issue an on-the-spot waiver. i relish the idea of going to a librarian to ask if I could "please" see a site.
Google currently claims to be indexing 3 billion pages. The size of the task is unbelievable.
The most important thing of course is how asinine the idea of filtering libraries is. It's not the librarians asking for this. I hope the First Amendment deep sixes it, and then we'll only deal with wonky filters if we choose to. To the extent that local libraries and schools want to filter what is appropriate for children, they can make that call on their own, perhaps subscribing to a trusted-source whitelist; this is appropriate only because children have reduced 1st A. rights. Whatever happens, and I'm talking to the would-be censors, don't condemn the adults to seeing nothing more than what is fit for children (see Supreme Court decision in Pacifica).
when a shuttle accdient is no more vividly remembered than a plane crash
Cute. Also true.
The shuttle explosion was a loss of innocence, perhaps kind of minor in retrospect but a big shock at the time. We'd never lost anyone in flight before, and the accident changed our space program fundamentally. Challenger eventually stood also for a massive governmental failure. It was *not* just about 7 people getting needlessly killed, and certainly not about money. I remember a friend flipping out at how the Times used up the first six pages solid on the accident, while people were dying by the hundreds or thousands in Columbian mudslides. She was right in a moral sense about what counted, but deaf in an emotional sense to those around her. (I gotta say that 6 pages was hugely excessive!)
I don't have any concrete answers why we feel differently about the deaths of strangers, and even less how we "should" feel. The death of a stranger can sometimes be more traumatic than the death of someone you know. But they're not all the same.
Heck, I even remember where I was when Reagan got shot, and I didn't even like him. It was a significant event in history, though kind of a footnote to JFK's assassination.
I support space exploration, but not manned space exploration. The cost effectiveness of unmanned spacecraft has been well demonstrated, and these programs were badly hurt by the Shuttle, I can tell you from hearing from the people who worked on them. (I grew up near JPL.)
The teacher-in-space program may inadvertently illustrate what an extravagance manned space exploration is and backfire. Remember all the criticism when they sent John Glenn up? At least he was a former astronaut, and they performed lots of medical experiments on the "first gerry in space." I'm not sure what a schoolteacher brings to the program except an opportunity for propaganda, and I suspect at least some people will see through that and say we aleady have enough things that need money on terra firma -- ironically, spending on education is among the msot prominent. Also, it's not that the money is that much relative to what ground-based problems need, but if it is a waste it is a waste, and if it diverts attention from more important (if boring) issues, it is a tragedy. Perhaps it can be defended as simple entertainment, but I don't feel the gov't is in the business of entertaining us, and not at such risk and cost.
If I were NASA, I would stress the economic and scientific payoff of the program. In some cases cases having a human in orbit is valuable, but we could scale back to meet those needs. The Shuttle has failed to meet its promise as a cost-effective way to move things to and from orbit, and it was the vain effort to prove otherwise that was a major factor in the fateful "go" decision in the Challenger launch. (The military quietly abandoned the Shuttle after that.) For pursuing our dreams -- well, it may be a lot cheaper, produce better science, and save lives to rethink those dreams.
This is not a "troll," just a plea for getting the most bang for the buck. I would like to see swarms of probes throught the solar system, something humans will not do for many, many years. The "gee whiz" factor of men and women in space is of little lasting value, and Mars can wait.
It's been done: John Glenn. :)
I remember when I heard about the Challenger accident vividly. With that in mind, exploding shuttles don't make good jokes.
You forgot Bill Gates. Alan Ralsky. And Rick Berman. :)
Those cameras are proliferating in the States -- they turn out to be wonderful moneymakers -- and are fairly controversial. There has even been some question whether they improve safety, because motorists who know the cameras are there sometimes behave recklessly to beat the red light or slam on the brakes. I'm waiting to see statistics.
Anyway, I'm almost certain the images are still processed by humans. I'm sure there will be some reluctance to handing is over to a computer, but I was just speculating it would happen. And apparently is has. Now, with a system like that -- plenty of cameras already installed -- why bother with tire chips?
Here is an example of what you describe, I think. I also see via Google various reference to these systems being used in the U.S. -- going back a couple of years! But I'm sure I haven't read about them, only the human mediated system used by Lockheed, which runs the cameras in our area by contract.
The idea that privacy is already gone and we should "get over it" is absolute idiocy.
:)
... how often do average citizens have their plate checked? I bet it's a lot, now that squad cars have computers and constant wireless links. And every time they do, it's a record of where the car was at what time. Next, the cameras will do this work automatically. Screw the tire chips.
:)
Gee, thanks.
My point was different: I think fighting tire chips is silly because the state already has plenty of alternatives. We can't stop it because it's already happened, and making a protest over some token new item is a waste of time; we might as well accept whatever benefits we can get.
The prevalence of video cameras makes me skeptical that law enforcement would bother assembling the database and tearing up all the streets when they already have a great system of tracking -- license plates. It wasn't widely discussed, but the snipers' license plates were run something like 9 times and their plate was photographed by a red light camera in the weeks they were doing their thing. If we had known what we were looking for we would have caught them earlier; meanwhile, law enforcement was apparently running the plates on no specific suspicion (remember, everyone said we were looking for a white truck). So
The Fourth Amendment is no help, because the Supreme Court ruled 20 years ago that the police could place a tracking device on your care without a warrant (!). I doubt exterior surveillance by camera would raise a constitutional problem, though I do hope that the Supreme Court will at some point look at the aggregate of all these little intrusions and conclude that an overall police state is unconstitutional. However, that would inject them into government in a way the Court does not want; and they've been fairly indifferent to privacy (notwithstanding the surprise thermal imaging decision).
So the effort of privacy advocates must be in legislation. The courts won't do it, and avoiding Michelin tires definitely won't do it. I'm hardly advocating acquiescence, just not tilting at windmills.
Oh, the icepick was a joke.
Just use an icepick to perforate the chip. :)
This decision was mentioned a few days ago in the Times I think, and the intent to transmit tire pressures was specified. As for privacy problems, I think it's a little premature. Anyone close enough to scan your "tire chips" could just write down or photograph your license plate anyway (thouse red light cameras come pretty close), and soon enough with OCR traffic cameras will be able to record your passing. So anonymity in public is a fleeting thing anyway, and the Fourth Amendment won't stop it.
Also, it is easy enough to buy tires anonymously by using the green stuff.
To protect privacy, campaigning has to focus on the weak leak: The government. That the administration would even propose TIA reflects a serious problem already; privacy is the orphan right.
You misunderstand -- Apple could "kill" Chimera by giving the latter's developers the impression that there's no need to contune because their browser is not different enough or that the remaining market share is too slight. There are other forms of competition than profit. Internet Explorer is free -- you don't think Microsoft intends to use it as a tool to dominate the market?
If the developers choose to shut down the Chimera project, it would be a shame, but it would be their decision. To blame that decision on Apple is ridiculous.
If the developers decide to shut down Chimera because of the Safari release, where the the hell would you assign the "blame" but Apple? It's not much of a blame -- the product is replaced and users come out in roughly the same place -- but you still see it would be a "shame." Apple is increasingly absorbing the types of applications with wide enough audiences to attract good developers, and here would be undermining an open source developer to boot. I don't think an all-Apple software world is a good thing. Although I think Apple is doing a great job, and I am benefitting from their products, it would be very foolish not to consider the impact of their expansion on the development community as a whole, which for the Mac is small to begin with.
Of course, I find something I love and *Apple* of all companies threatens to kill it, indirectly.
I've been using Chimera Navigator for months, forgetting altogether IE (the real villain IMHO). I suppose the sole question for the Chimera team on whether to continue is whether *their* shadowy objectives are being met. The results in the time frame of the effort so far has been impressive -- no, stunning -- much more than a build-a-brower this weekend kind of thing. It really is Mac software.
The single best thing I can say about Chimera -- and there are many nice things, more so now that I've gotten around to poking around with 3rd party mods like SpeedChimera and "PDF Plugin" -- is that I've mostly forgotten about it. That is, it works like the Finder or some other utility that you take for granted and don't give much thought. That's what I've wanted, not the fickle and feature-encrusted IE, just something simple and clean and fast. Safari will learn (has learned?) a few things from Chimera, which tells you something about the latter's value and why it would be a shame to lose the lead-by-example prominence of Chimera.
Which brings up another question -- which is the "real" Bible? King James? RSV? Reader's Digest (the one with 7 commandments)? How about the Latin one all this stuff replaced? And the Greek texts? And so on.
Never mind. The King James will always be the moetht lhyricul.
Seriously, in the U.S. we just recently had a paralytic dockworkers' strike. I don't think they'd be amused by this labor-saving innovation. Not that I think people should be kicked out of jobs by robots.
Each of their mooring magnets generates a 1-tesla magnetic field. (from NS article)
WOW! That's strong. I used to work with a 1.5-T superconductor magnet, an MRI scanner, and it had a heck of a pull. Enough so that people have been injured or killed when a piece of metal got loose. It took three of us to pull off the base of an IV pole (no one inside at the time). Some of the research magnets are 4-T or more. But these are all superconductors, and act like permanent magnets. The resisitive magnets here must produce tons of heat while gobbling electricity. Surely "auto-dock" wouldn't be too hard to design., with mechanical restraints?
I really don't think the Court thought of it as a gift to Disney, but their decision was between commercial interests (Disney) and the public domain (plus relatively small commercial interests in creating derivative works), and they inclined towards the former.
Because they approved of the retroactive application, an either/or decision, they had the power to repeal that aspect of the Bono Act. The life+70 term would have stood, but Mickey would be free, at least in his old flicks. And there the error was not so much deference to Congress as logical strangeness -- copyright law (some of us thought) is supposed to inspire creative talent before the work is created, not extend monopolies long after the creation. Worse, they blew off the relevance of the First Amendment, questioning the right to speak the words of others and saying fair use would suffice. Of course, we're losing fair use...
The Court did not rule specifically on the maximum number of years allowed, and even had the question been presented, a hands-off attitude would have been best. We've seen the Supreme Court in the past be too combative with Congress on judgment calls, as during the New Deal. They renounced that course a long time ago -- though it has reappeared a bit under the guise of federalism.
Anyway, too much detail. I'm kind of thinking aloud.