I know, but that speaks to the point I was making about how having dozens of little fiefdoms working on a big project which impacts them all is a mistake.
States should really have regional governers who can oversee this sort of thing (where it's not as big as the whole state, but not as small as a particular city or county). They're missing a certain middle power, I think.
The single biggest problem; every voting district is run by a different person. The districts with the largest populations have the biggest problems... coincidence?
Reminds me of BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit for those of you not in Cali). It's been around for 30 years + 1 day. It runs within a mile of two major airports, but still does not run directly to either (even though it was suggested and approved back when service began).
Of course, not all projects with open source need be Open Source projects.
What I mean here is that just because the code is open to review and comment, it need not be worked on by anyone outside of a central group of people. In this sense, the "open source" nature simply means that the code is open to review to be sure there are no "if (vote == "democrat") { vote = "republican" }"-type loopholes.
IMO, publically funded software ought to be this way, anyhow. Openness is a good habit to get into (and one which our current gov't does not have).
Off topic: The person in the cube next to me left her cell phone on her desk, and someone has been calling it every two minutes for the last hour and just letting it ring. I'm entertaining suggestions as to what I should do with the infernal device.
I think there's too much emphesis on preventing fraud, as if voting fraud is somehow a new phenomenon unique to electronic voting.
While security is naturally important, I think it's equally vital to have a reliable, easy-to-audit and hard-to-break system.
With that in mind, I think the best system is still a card system (specifically the "complete the arrow" system). It won't crash, it's recountible as many times as you need (no chads shaking loose in the counting machine) and it's so easy that even the retarded old people living in certain Florida counties can figure it out.
The best part is that it uses no complex parts (which, according to Murphy's Law, are prone to failure on election day). Just a paper and pen -- beat that. Add a reasonable amount of physical security (deputies at each location, plus maybe a representative from each major party to observe) and you're good to go.
This is one of those situations where overthinking and overengineering comes back to bite you.
Afganistan has been crapped on by the rest of the world for like 20 someodd years now.
Last 20? Try the last few thousand.
Start with Alexander the Great circa 300 BC and move forward. Scythians, White Huns, Turks, Arabs and Persians all took the place over at one time or another. And that was just in the first thousand years or so.
Add to that a guy named Mahmud of Ghazni and Genghis Kahn. Then there were some petty warlords. Then the Brits. Then the Russians (not once, not twice, but at least three major times).
This area is the crossroads of Asia. It's pretty much been shit on throughout human history.
Now, what they really need is a few decades of peace to get their feet under them, build a stable tradition of government and society with the help of (but not the control of) other, more powerful nations. I don't think this is going to happen -- Bush might have had Karzi over for the State of the Union, but it looks like we're already about done with our "rebuilding" effort and are getting ready to go bomb another Arab state.
Afghanistan could be the US's great ally in the region. We could provide modern construction equipment to rebuild their infrastructure and help from development advisors. We could give full-ride scholarships to five thousand prospective Afghani teachers each year. We could help them without trying to dictate a culture or a market or a way of life.
If we could pay attention and help them out the way, say, we helped Isreal in the last 60 years, there's a pretty good chance we'd seem like less of an evil bully and more a helpful neighbor.
The dirty secret, of course, is that's how you stop terrorists -- you take away their appeal to the common people so they look more like Ted Kazinskis than George Washingtons to those they're trying to persuade.
Instead, it looks like we're already searching for another anthill to kick over. Bombing the fuck out of vastly inferior militaries might be fun in the short run, but it's counterproductive over a longer term.
Yes, you can tweak the UI so that it looks more like the host operating system. This is a thin veneer, however, as the emperor's proverbial clothes come into view when the OS theme is changed.
The answer, of course, is to have the OS's WM provide information about the default behavior to the various applications.
Think of it as skins++. Not only can the layout and look be adjusted, but also these specific behaviors can be dictated (or suggested, I suppose -- you should be able to override if you really want to) by the central WM.
This would have the side advantage of making development easier and allowing older apps to stay "current" in terms of basic look-and-feel.
This is where I do my little dance and feel special. Salon quotes me, *and* I get an article on the front page! Then I post this OT, worthless post and burn off my karma.
As noted earlier, I'm 6'3", 205 lbs and am a fairly strong guy. When someone tries to start something with me in a bar (this has happened but once), I *leave*. I'd recommend you try that. Better to sting the pride than to end up beaten/stabbed/shot.
People fail on diets because they are weak and don't follow the diet plans.
That's not really fair. Most diets fail because they're a basic aberration -- to get lasting results, you have to alter your lifestyle (and alter it to something you can *live with*), not just do something specific for a few months.
The rise of obesity in American society has many factors, and I think that laziness is a very small one. A much more important factor would be the insane number of carbohydrates that we consume now as opposed to one hundred years ago.
Well, of course you're right that dietary changes are a big part of it. However, don't underestimate the effect of a sedetary lifestyle.
I know of whence I speak here: Up until a few months ago, I was one of those all-waking-hours-in-front-of-a-screen types. I exercised very inconsistantly, and I tried to control my weight through diet. The problem was, frankly, that I just didn't have the willpower (or the knowledge) to *always* eat right. So you're right when you say most *diets* fail -- what I really needed was a change in the way I live.
I've been working out pretty steadily for about four months and I'm slowly taking off the weight I put on (I'm 6' 3" and 205; I'm hoping to even out about about 180 or so). I also made some other changes, like quitting candy bars and switching to diet soda, but nothing all that radical (I still have the occassional In & Out Burger, I still drink regular beer, etc).
Anyhow, I think my biggest point was that you shouldn't just disregard your health or assume that you're helpless to control your weight or fitness level. If I was able to adopt a semi-healthy lifestyle, anyone can.
but i cant run as you suggest, especially 2 miles, i can barely walk 1 mile (if i can at all).. if i ran id pass out after about 100 feet. so whats your suggestion?
Two steps:
1. Recognize that your excuses are all self-defeating bullshit.
2. Work up to your goal.
Seriously, the only things keeping 99% of us from being healthy are the convenient little excuses we make for ourselves (some people have medical problem, but few are so serious as to preclude an active lifestyle).
Look around and tell me how many really fat 40 year olds you see. Now, how many 50 year olds? 60? Am I getting through here?
Being active gives you a lot of things: it makes you more physically attractive to most people, you'll have more energy, you'll fit into a single airline seat, you'll be stronger and generally more able to keep up with life, but the biggie is still this: If you're fat, you're going to die before you have to.
But oops! I'm not a college graduate. And I abhor going after someone with a machine gun when tear gas, flash bang (knockout/stun) grenades and other nonlethal options, are equally as effective, and now readily available.
Well, "equally effective" is a bit of a stretch.
Aside from that, pretty much what you're indicating is that you'd be a good researcher but a pretty poor law-enforcement agent (cops, FBI guys, DEA, etc all have one big priority: don't take any chances that might not let you go home that night. This includes killing people you think are threatening you).
Where the FBI really needs to improve, probably, is structurally -- recognize that researchers and experts shouldn't necessarily be inferior to agents and adjust to give them an appropriate amount of influence.
but would they be as tech smart and on top of things?
After flirting with exercise for about two years, I finally started working out on a seriously regular basis about four months ago (every weekday, 1 hour, rain or shine or apocolypse).
I find that I have increased energy and, as an extention, less need for caffine and a generally clearer head (esp. during those hours after lunch when everyone else is half-asleep). IMO, I absorb information much more easily and am better able to "wrap my head" around things.
As a bonus, I find that the time I spend working out (I run and lift free weights) is rivaled only by my morning shower in terms of inspiration potential -- you're concentrating only on the mundane task at hand, and your brain is free to dedicate extra cycles towards solving problems.
That's just one geek's observations; your milage may vary.
I saw a study the other day which concludes that being a couch potato is worse for you than a reasonably serious tobacco habit. So, not being able to join the FBI is the least of your problems -- being a blob with high blood pressure whose heart is being transformed into a ten- or twenty-year time bomb ranks a lot higher.
Don't be content to be a fat fuck, and don't let yourself off with "Gee, I'm just too busy to exercise" or "Exercise is for stupid jocks" excuse. There are better ways to flirt with death than to sit on your ass 18 hours a day chugging Dew and eating Ho Hos.
Here's my 20 minute-a-day, 4 times a week solution: Get out and run. Two and a quarter miles or so in about 20 minutes will put you in reasonably good shape. It doesn't hurt to squeeze in some work with free weights, either, but you can work up to that. In any event, start off slow and work up to your goal over a couple of months, and *don't* let yourself plateau too early.
Oh, and good shoes are really important. I highly recommend New Balance.
Okay, there are a lot of wireless access points out there. Okay, many of them aren't secured very well (if at all).
So what?
Why is it worth so much effort to reillustrate this point over and over again? Sure, Wardriving was a neat concept the first time someone pointed it out, but this is just more of the same thing. What's next? Wartraining? "Look, we got on these wireless LANs while riding the El in Chicago! Why the hell do we have to obsess on this over and over again? This has been overdone to the point where I'm sure we'll see a UserFriendly strip about it!
I'm not sure this will do any good, but I add my vote in here.
Here's why.
Call him out on his apparent assumptions. Ask a simple, fair question, get it modded up by poeple who obviously feel the same way, and then find that *every single post in the thread* has been modded down -2 Offtopic. I mean, really: grow up. If you don't like what I have to say, jump in and contribute rather than just bitch-slapping the whole thread.
I don't give a rat's ass about my Karma (or else why would I post this?), but the idea that asking questions that are obviously supported by other/. users deserves high-level retribution is fucked up.
I'm a long time/. user (check the UID) and I feel that the content I've added here contributes in a generally positive way to the site. I don't expect to have a lot of say in how things on this site progress, but it disappoints me to be automatically dismissed.
Slashdot is the sum of its users. Ignore them at your peril.
Slashdot Mirror
States should really have regional governers who can oversee this sort of thing (where it's not as big as the whole state, but not as small as a particular city or county). They're missing a certain middle power, I think.
Reminds me of BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit for those of you not in Cali). It's been around for 30 years + 1 day. It runs within a mile of two major airports, but still does not run directly to either (even though it was suggested and approved back when service began).
And forget about getting down to San Jose...
What I mean here is that just because the code is open to review and comment, it need not be worked on by anyone outside of a central group of people. In this sense, the "open source" nature simply means that the code is open to review to be sure there are no "if (vote == "democrat") { vote = "republican" }"-type loopholes.
IMO, publically funded software ought to be this way, anyhow. Openness is a good habit to get into (and one which our current gov't does not have).
Off topic: The person in the cube next to me left her cell phone on her desk, and someone has been calling it every two minutes for the last hour and just letting it ring. I'm entertaining suggestions as to what I should do with the infernal device.
Yeah, I'm in favor of having unelected political hacks and the Supreme Court decide who our elected officials should be like last time. After all, voting only takes valuable time away from the important things in life.
With that in mind, I think the best system is still a card system (specifically the "complete the arrow" system). It won't crash, it's recountible as many times as you need (no chads shaking loose in the counting machine) and it's so easy that even the retarded old people living in certain Florida counties can figure it out.
The best part is that it uses no complex parts (which, according to Murphy's Law, are prone to failure on election day). Just a paper and pen -- beat that. Add a reasonable amount of physical security (deputies at each location, plus maybe a representative from each major party to observe) and you're good to go.
This is one of those situations where overthinking and overengineering comes back to bite you.
Great unless my house burns down. But then, having conventional pics wouldn't help in that case, either.
Last 20? Try the last few thousand.
Start with Alexander the Great circa 300 BC and move forward. Scythians, White Huns, Turks, Arabs and Persians all took the place over at one time or another. And that was just in the first thousand years or so. Add to that a guy named Mahmud of Ghazni and Genghis Kahn. Then there were some petty warlords. Then the Brits. Then the Russians (not once, not twice, but at least three major times).
This area is the crossroads of Asia. It's pretty much been shit on throughout human history.
Now, what they really need is a few decades of peace to get their feet under them, build a stable tradition of government and society with the help of (but not the control of) other, more powerful nations. I don't think this is going to happen -- Bush might have had Karzi over for the State of the Union, but it looks like we're already about done with our "rebuilding" effort and are getting ready to go bomb another Arab state.
Afghanistan could be the US's great ally in the region. We could provide modern construction equipment to rebuild their infrastructure and help from development advisors. We could give full-ride scholarships to five thousand prospective Afghani teachers each year. We could help them without trying to dictate a culture or a market or a way of life.
If we could pay attention and help them out the way, say, we helped Isreal in the last 60 years, there's a pretty good chance we'd seem like less of an evil bully and more a helpful neighbor. The dirty secret, of course, is that's how you stop terrorists -- you take away their appeal to the common people so they look more like Ted Kazinskis than George Washingtons to those they're trying to persuade.
Instead, it looks like we're already searching for another anthill to kick over. Bombing the fuck out of vastly inferior militaries might be fun in the short run, but it's counterproductive over a longer term.
Worse -- I think I'm ESR. Bow before my opinions!
The answer, of course, is to have the OS's WM provide information about the default behavior to the various applications.
Think of it as skins++. Not only can the layout and look be adjusted, but also these specific behaviors can be dictated (or suggested, I suppose -- you should be able to override if you really want to) by the central WM. This would have the side advantage of making development easier and allowing older apps to stay "current" in terms of basic look-and-feel.
This is where I do my little dance and feel special. Salon quotes me, *and* I get an article on the front page! Then I post this OT, worthless post and burn off my karma.
On on! -- Strike Five
Right. 'cause that's a good idea.
As noted earlier, I'm 6'3", 205 lbs and am a fairly strong guy. When someone tries to start something with me in a bar (this has happened but once), I *leave*. I'd recommend you try that. Better to sting the pride than to end up beaten/stabbed/shot.
That's not really fair. Most diets fail because they're a basic aberration -- to get lasting results, you have to alter your lifestyle (and alter it to something you can *live with*), not just do something specific for a few months.
"I tried to load Linux once without ever reading anything about it or having any previous experience with computers, and it was hard. I can't do it."
Well, of course you're right that dietary changes are a big part of it. However, don't underestimate the effect of a sedetary lifestyle.
I know of whence I speak here: Up until a few months ago, I was one of those all-waking-hours-in-front-of-a-screen types. I exercised very inconsistantly, and I tried to control my weight through diet. The problem was, frankly, that I just didn't have the willpower (or the knowledge) to *always* eat right. So you're right when you say most *diets* fail -- what I really needed was a change in the way I live.
I've been working out pretty steadily for about four months and I'm slowly taking off the weight I put on (I'm 6' 3" and 205; I'm hoping to even out about about 180 or so). I also made some other changes, like quitting candy bars and switching to diet soda, but nothing all that radical (I still have the occassional In & Out Burger, I still drink regular beer, etc).
Anyhow, I think my biggest point was that you shouldn't just disregard your health or assume that you're helpless to control your weight or fitness level. If I was able to adopt a semi-healthy lifestyle, anyone can.
Two steps:
1. Recognize that your excuses are all self-defeating bullshit.
2. Work up to your goal.
Seriously, the only things keeping 99% of us from being healthy are the convenient little excuses we make for ourselves (some people have medical problem, but few are so serious as to preclude an active lifestyle).
Look around and tell me how many really fat 40 year olds you see. Now, how many 50 year olds? 60? Am I getting through here?
Being active gives you a lot of things: it makes you more physically attractive to most people, you'll have more energy, you'll fit into a single airline seat, you'll be stronger and generally more able to keep up with life, but the biggie is still this: If you're fat, you're going to die before you have to.
Well, "equally effective" is a bit of a stretch.
Aside from that, pretty much what you're indicating is that you'd be a good researcher but a pretty poor law-enforcement agent (cops, FBI guys, DEA, etc all have one big priority: don't take any chances that might not let you go home that night. This includes killing people you think are threatening you).
Where the FBI really needs to improve, probably, is structurally -- recognize that researchers and experts shouldn't necessarily be inferior to agents and adjust to give them an appropriate amount of influence.
After flirting with exercise for about two years, I finally started working out on a seriously regular basis about four months ago (every weekday, 1 hour, rain or shine or apocolypse).
I find that I have increased energy and, as an extention, less need for caffine and a generally clearer head (esp. during those hours after lunch when everyone else is half-asleep). IMO, I absorb information much more easily and am better able to "wrap my head" around things.
As a bonus, I find that the time I spend working out (I run and lift free weights) is rivaled only by my morning shower in terms of inspiration potential -- you're concentrating only on the mundane task at hand, and your brain is free to dedicate extra cycles towards solving problems.
That's just one geek's observations; your milage may vary.
Don't be content to be a fat fuck, and don't let yourself off with "Gee, I'm just too busy to exercise" or "Exercise is for stupid jocks" excuse. There are better ways to flirt with death than to sit on your ass 18 hours a day chugging Dew and eating Ho Hos.
Here's my 20 minute-a-day, 4 times a week solution: Get out and run. Two and a quarter miles or so in about 20 minutes will put you in reasonably good shape. It doesn't hurt to squeeze in some work with free weights, either, but you can work up to that. In any event, start off slow and work up to your goal over a couple of months, and *don't* let yourself plateau too early.
Oh, and good shoes are really important. I highly recommend New Balance.
Why should/would I use Netscape instead of Mozilla? Not getting enough pop-up windows in my life? Feel the need for a more closed solution?
Okay, there are a lot of wireless access points out there. Okay, many of them aren't secured very well (if at all).
So what? Why is it worth so much effort to reillustrate this point over and over again? Sure, Wardriving was a neat concept the first time someone pointed it out, but this is just more of the same thing. What's next? Wartraining? "Look, we got on these wireless LANs while riding the El in Chicago! Why the hell do we have to obsess on this over and over again? This has been overdone to the point where I'm sure we'll see a UserFriendly strip about it!
Okay, rant over. Sorry.
You are new around here. Quit trolling.
Call him out on his apparent assumptions. Ask a simple, fair question, get it modded up by poeple who obviously feel the same way, and then find that *every single post in the thread* has been modded down -2 Offtopic. I mean, really: grow up. If you don't like what I have to say, jump in and contribute rather than just bitch-slapping the whole thread.
I don't give a rat's ass about my Karma (or else why would I post this?), but the idea that asking questions that are obviously supported by other /. users deserves high-level retribution is fucked up.
I'm a long time /. user (check the UID) and I feel that the content I've added here contributes in a generally positive way to the site. I don't expect to have a lot of say in how things on this site progress, but it disappoints me to be automatically dismissed.
Slashdot is the sum of its users. Ignore them at your peril.
Put the dog in the fuckin' basket!
Alien 1: Let's kill their President!
Alien 2: How?
Alien 1: Let's frame him for murder in Texas!