Re:Old method still isn't good enough
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 2
Whats completely relevant is that what happened did follow the legal process. Every law was kept to the letter.
There's plenty of justification for the claim that the ballot did not conform to state law. That's for the courts to decide. The courts are also empowered by law to adjust vote counts in the case of irregularities. Sorry, but the Bush camp's claim to the high ground here is hollow; everything challenge that the Gore camp is raising is also in keeping with the law.
Hey, I used to live in Berwyn Heights. Had a basement apartment in a house on Ruatan for about a year before I moved across 193 to share a Springhill Lake 3 bedroom.
Re:No one's vote was taken away.
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 2
Those 19,000 people voted again after the machine beeped when they fucked up their first ballot.
First I've heard of that, and I've been glued to CNN. Reference, please?
Re:Old Methods Not At Fault
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 2
How can you possibly claim they are the wisest people in the community, if they were too stupid to figure out the ballot paper?
Wisdom and tech savvy are orthogonal. It seems simple to those of us who grew up with scan-tron tests and the like, but for many older people computer-readable ballots make as much sense as rotary dials make to today's kids raised with cell phones.
Re:Old method still isn't good enough
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
It was sooo unfair of that Democrat who made those ballots so unreadable in Palm Beach, if only they had okayed the ballot before the election then they would have nothing to complain about...
It is completely irrelvant that the people who approved the ballot were Democrats. The right to vote can't be taken away with the excuse that the people taking it away belong to the party that you're voting for.
failure of technology
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 2
Technophile that I am, I still have to admit that recent events in Florida make it clear that making people cast their votes in a way that's convenient for machines rather than voters is a failure. 20,000 people just in one county may be disenfranchised for the sin of being unable to communicate with a vote counting machine.
Voting via computer would be fine for me, second generation programmer and uber-geek that I am; but there are plenty of people, otherwise intelligent, who have great difficulty in communicating with technology. You've seen them in front of you at ATMs, no doubt, holding up the line.
we have no real experience with it. I think that's why most people don't accept it, in fact.
Depends on the thing being measured. We're all pretty familiar with liters, thanks to soda bottles - in fact, it's pints and cups and that stuff that confuse me. (I'm thirty, and when I was in elementry school is the 70's it was assumed that we'd be metric any day now. Heh.) Distance, I'm about equally comfortable with feet and meters, thanks to metersticks and 5k runs and rulers with dual markings. But in weight and temperature I think in pounds and degrees Fahrenheit. (I wish they'd announce temperature in Fahrenheit and Celsius in weather reports, so I could get a feel for it.)
This just makes me even more ashamed of the huge purple neon "PSI NET STADIUM" I pass by every time I head downtown. It was bad enough to know that Maryland gave a sweet deal to a known corporate criminal to bring a football team here; bad enough that they sold the name of the stadium to the highest bidder; but now I have to deal with the fact that my state government is in sweet with a bunch a spammers.
What do cruft-encased UNIX old-timers get from preaching function over form?
Gee, I dunno, maybe because we like to use our computers to get things accomplished, instead of admiring them from across the room as objects d'art?
They appreciate things that look nice. Cars, magazines, furniture, people of the opposite gender (a bow to P.C;) computer cases, everything!
My car is a dirty green Toyota Tercel encrufted with bumper stickers, my furniture mostly second-hand, my boxen encased in plain beige (with various comic strips and the like plastered on, of course),and I don't judge printed matter by its cover. (Otherwise one would conclude that USA Today is a superior source of news to the New York Times.)
Now, in terms of persons of the appropriate gender, when it comes to sex form is a part of function. But in the other examples you site, some sophmoric designer's notion of form usually ends up getting in the way of using the damn thing - pretty chairs that are impossible to sit in, computer cases that impede repair and update,
PS& Aliased fonts also cause headaches.
Actually, I find that blurry "smoothed" fonts are more likely to hurt me, as my eyes try in vain to bring them into focus. OTOH, a lot of people here seem to be saying that they're most useful for small fonts, whereas my take is just to save myself the eyestrain either way and avoid small fonts completely. (Website and document designers who force them on me are, of course, idiots who should be strung up by their thumbs.)
Re:The minidisk is great for recording
on
Is MiniDisc Dead?
·
· Score: 3
One reason that I like my MD player is it's ability to record just like a tape recorder. I have a small band and I found that
the minidisk is the best way to record while playing and be able to listen to what we did as quickly and clearly as possible.
Agreed! Minidisks are great for recording live music. I think if nothing else, it will have a niche amoung amateur and semi-professional musicians, and "tapers" (people who tape live shows, a culture that grew up around the Grateful Dead but lives on amoung fans of "jam bands").
Frankly, I find the idea that government has such a huge hand in education equally innocuous. What more
perfect place for a government to brainwash it's citizens with it's propaganda.
You know, I'm not really too worried about the Baltimore County government inflicting propaganda on students. What are they going to do, feed students jingoism about how superior we are than people across the river in Howard County?
So long as things are still controlled at the local level, I don't see that public schools are any more propaganda centers than private ones. Certainly less so that religious schools, which constitute the majority of private schools around here.
The time period is 12 months,
which doesn't generally fall under the category of "speculation," but rather is better termed "investment."
Buying something and holding it for a year, or even two or three, in hopes that its price will go up is still speculation. Indeed, holding it for any length of time in hopes that later on some sucker will pay more for it that you did should be regarded as speculation.
Investment would be buying in expection of dividends - remember that old-fashioned idea? From back before stock was something we traded like baseball cards, and with just as much intrinsic value?
He wants the government to
tell you whether or not you can own a car, and if you do, what kind you will have.
The government already tells you whether or not you can operate your car on the public roads, determines what kinds of cars can be driven on the public roads, and determines how much shit our cars can spew into the public atmosphere. We could definitely use stronger regulations in all three areas.
Like driving on public roads, using non-renewable resources (like petroleum) should be seen as a priviledge, not a right.
What any of this has to do with communism - the idea that people who actually work, rather than a small government-backed ruling class, should control economic resources - is beyond me.
I thought telecommuting was a perk for the employee.
Perk? I'd be saving them office space, and since I'm not wasting an hour on the road each day I could accept a lower rate and still end up with both more money and more time - as well as being able to only bill hours when I can be productive.
In a sensible world, software developers would all telecommute - better for us, better for the companies, better for the environment, even better for those for whom the nature of their job prohibits telecommuting since we won't be clogging the roads.
Here's your cell phone, and since we have the number, we'll feel free to call anytime we need something done."
I wouldn't mind that, provided that I didn't have to waste an hour or more on the road daily, come into an uncomfortable office, stick to someone else's schedule, or work unpaid hours.
I don't want tools that let me take work home with me after hours, I want tools that will let me keep my work here and make my own hours.
Personally, I feel what the kid did in the article did was laudable, and the
only reason that the school suspended him was because he made a point.
Of course! The worst sin is to question, to point out that the emperor has no clothes. The first commandment in the Old Testament is not "Don't kill each other", it's "Don't even think about having any other gods (and therefore respecting priests other than the ones giving you this commandment)."
Sir, you are incorrect. Please refer to what is commonly known as the 'plain view doctrine'.
I have not been discussing doctines promulgated by illiterate justices. I thought I had made it quite clear that I have been discussing the actual text of the Constitution. Which is why I said "At least, according to the text of the Fourth Amendment," and quoted said text.
Which, I repeat, states "particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." There is no latitude there for any "plain view" exemption.
This is incorrect. If the police see evidence of illegal activity, they may act on it.
No. They have to collect enough evidence to have probable cause, convince a judge, and get a warrant. If in the course of executing that warrant, they think they have evidence of some other crime, they have to go convince the judge again and get another warrant.
At least, according to the text of the Fourth Amendment:
...no warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized.
This guy is a squatter who didn't even bother to contest the charges. Why should we cry for him?
Protesting the heavy-handed actions of Guinness is not the same as crying to this squatter. His past actions have no bearing on the question of whether
Guinness's actions are justified.
Q: So when will Guinness World Records lose their domain?
A: They Won't
Q: Why?
Because the Guinness in "Guinness Stout" is the same Guinness in "Guinness World Record". The book was started by the brewery to settle bar bets and the like.
Then they start a rally against your company, but because of your devotion you cannot protect your
trademark from unauthorized use that you don't agree with.
Bullshit. You don't get to protect your trademark agaist use you don't agree with, you only get to protect it against confusing commercial use.
I can, for example, say that Guinness® is a fine brew made by a bunch of corporate bastards who suck Satan's cock. That's a fine exercise of my right of free speech, and no trademark law can oppose it.
I could even say that, in light of that, I will be foregoing Guinness® and Harp®, in favor of
the Blue Ridge® and Wild Goose® lines from the Frederick Brewing Company (of which I happen to own a few shares), and recommend that you do the same. That's commerical speech, using Guinness trademarks in a way that Guinness certainly doesn't like, but it's not in any way an attempt to engage in fraud, so it too is perfectly valid.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I used to live in Berwyn Heights. Had a basement apartment in a house on Ruatan for about a year before I moved across 193 to share a Springhill Lake 3 bedroom.
Technophile that I am, I still have to admit that recent events in Florida make it clear that making people cast their votes in a way that's convenient for machines rather than voters is a failure. 20,000 people just in one county may be disenfranchised for the sin of being unable to communicate with a vote counting machine.
Voting via computer would be fine for me, second generation programmer and uber-geek that I am; but there are plenty of people, otherwise intelligent, who have great difficulty in communicating with technology. You've seen them in front of you at ATMs, no doubt, holding up the line.
I'm just outside Baltimore. I think Roblimo is somewhere around B'more too.
This just makes me even more ashamed of the huge purple neon "PSI NET STADIUM" I pass by every time I head downtown. It was bad enough to know that Maryland gave a sweet deal to a known corporate criminal to bring a football team here; bad enough that they sold the name of the stadium to the highest bidder; but now I have to deal with the fact that my state government is in sweet with a bunch a spammers.
The shame. The horror.
Now, in terms of persons of the appropriate gender, when it comes to sex form is a part of function. But in the other examples you site, some sophmoric designer's notion of form usually ends up getting in the way of using the damn thing - pretty chairs that are impossible to sit in, computer cases that impede repair and update,
Actually, I find that blurry "smoothed" fonts are more likely to hurt me, as my eyes try in vain to bring them into focus. OTOH, a lot of people here seem to be saying that they're most useful for small fonts, whereas my take is just to save myself the eyestrain either way and avoid small fonts completely. (Website and document designers who force them on me are, of course, idiots who should be strung up by their thumbs.)So long as things are still controlled at the local level, I don't see that public schools are any more propaganda centers than private ones. Certainly less so that religious schools, which constitute the majority of private schools around here.
Investment would be buying in expection of dividends - remember that old-fashioned idea? From back before stock was something we traded like baseball cards, and with just as much intrinsic value?
Like driving on public roads, using non-renewable resources (like petroleum) should be seen as a priviledge, not a right.
What any of this has to do with communism - the idea that people who actually work, rather than a small government-backed ruling class, should control economic resources - is beyond me.
If I want to be social, I'll get together with a friend in the evening, or head down to my favorite bar for a beer or three.
In a sensible world, software developers would all telecommute - better for us, better for the companies, better for the environment, even better for those for whom the nature of their job prohibits telecommuting since we won't be clogging the roads.
I don't want tools that let me take work home with me after hours, I want tools that will let me keep my work here and make my own hours.
Which, I repeat, states "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." There is no latitude there for any "plain view" exemption.
At least, according to the text of the Fourth Amendment:
I can, for example, say that Guinness® is a fine brew made by a bunch of corporate bastards who suck Satan's cock. That's a fine exercise of my right of free speech, and no trademark law can oppose it.
I could even say that, in light of that, I will be foregoing Guinness® and Harp®, in favor of the Blue Ridge® and Wild Goose® lines from the Frederick Brewing Company (of which I happen to own a few shares), and recommend that you do the same. That's commerical speech, using Guinness trademarks in a way that Guinness certainly doesn't like, but it's not in any way an attempt to engage in fraud, so it too is perfectly valid.