Time Warner digital cable: $61.30/month x 12 months = $735.60/year.
I want to watch the following shows, which cost the following amounts on the iTunes Music Store:
Lost $34.99
Robot Chicken $19.99
Venture Bros. $19.99
Inside the Actor's Studio $9.99
The Daily Show $119.88
The Colbert Report $119.88
South Park $23.99
MythBusters $25.87
The Shield $21.89
The Riches $22.99
My Name is Earl $36.99
The Office $34.99
Scrubs $34.99
Law & Order $35.99
NOVA $29.99
Battlestar Galactica $34.99
Stargate SG-1 $37.99
Stargate Atlantis $37.99
Psych $28.99
Total $722.38/year
What's that, I can get all the shows I watch on iTunes and get movies and play my music all through one interface? I can't imagine why people would go for this...
The only downside is that that you can't browse cable tv offerings at 3:00 AM, the shows aren't currently HD and the price break is dependent on how much content you use. I expect that, within the next year, Apple will offer a subscription-based service (betcha it's still tiered, based on usage) and will start offering HD content. It may not be exactly the same thing as cable+DVR but it's pretty close to being competitive. Not too bad for version 1.0.
A transition back to mechanical voting would be a poor choice for a number of reasons. Mechanical voting machines are labor intensive and, gasp, prone to mechanical failures. Paper ballots, too, have substantial downsides, particularly because there is no good way to automate vote counting.
Optical scan and Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are the best two choices. There are ways to address the security concerns that surround DRE systems and they have the added benefit of addressing certain problems (usability, accessibility, etc.) in a far more elegant way than optical scan systems.
The bottom line is that voting system development is a process, not a product. No one technology should be declared the clear winner without a commensurate articulation of why it is the best choice for the situation.
I assume that by "they" you mean either the people, Congress, the federal bureaucracy or all three in combination. In fact, a fair amount of research has been done into voting systems, especially since the 2000 election. My belief in the consensus you cite was what led to my selection of this topic for a term paper at school. But research often has a way of moderating views. In fact, voter verifiable paper trails (VVPTs) may not be the panacea they were originally thought to be.
For those making the decision of what voting system to use, there are many different (and often competing) values which must be considered, including, in no particular order:
Security
Reliability
Usability
Ease of administration for voting precinct volunteers
Verifiability and audit capability
Handicapped accessibility (especially for blind voters)
Accessability for non-english speakers
Ease and speed of vote tabulation
Cost-benefit analysis of all of the above
Computerized voting machines, when well-designed, are much more user-friendly than nearly any other voting system and can address many of these other values in a comparatively trivial way. For instance, computerized voting systems can provide auditory feedback to blind voters, can easily display ballots in multiple languages.
Furthermore, VVPTs are not the best option for keeping a concurrent record of the system's functionality. One option I've encountered may be far superior to this: A video record of each voting terminal while in use.
My point here is not to argue against VVPTs (I think they have their place), so much as to further expand the debate. By understanding all of the considerations that must be made in selecting a voting system, perhaps we can have a more expansive and illuminating discussion about it here on Slashdot. Any potential solution (VVPTs, optical scan, paper ballots) will have both merits and flaws. But boiling it down to a "They're stealing the vote. VVPTs will save democracy!" doesn't do anybody any good, it just confuses the issue. As per usual, a little research into the issue will expose it as far less black and white than it first appears.
Bait and switch is when a seller advertises one product that he cannot possibly sell and then push another product when customers come in looking for the advertised product. For instance, if he advertised "Playstation 3 for $99.99," did not ever even order any Playstation 3's, and then pushed Wii's on customers who came in looking for the Playstation 3's, he would be conducting a bait and switch scheme.
A loss leader is when the seller advertises one product that she has limited supplies of, sell out early, and then push another product when customers come in looking for the advertised product. For instance, if she advertised "Playstation 3 for $99.99.! Supplies limited, first come, first serve!", sold the 50 playstation 3's she had in stock, and then pushed Wii's on customers who came in looking for the Playstation 3's, she would be conducting a loss leader.
Bait and switch is outright fraud and illegal. The loss leader is legal, because the seller is upfront about the limited supplies.
In this case, I'm not sure that Best Buy's actions fall into either of these two categories. I expect that, as companies that combine brick & mortar and web stores encounter these types of situations, they are likely to tell you to order online for instore pickup or to explain upfront that they don't honor online pricing instore.
Besides, I think the notion that the instore price should be the same as online is laughable anyway. Instore costs more to stock, pay for salesperson, etc. Warehousing goods to ship and paying for customer service representatives who only respond via email is much cheaper and thus the online store has the benefit in price. If you buy instore, you are paying for the salesperson's (often limited) knowledge and expertise, and, more importantly, the convenience of instant gratification.
And you've been mislead by the media into thinking that judges aren't supposed to make law. In fact, in a common law system, that is part of a judge's job and has been since before the U.S. was founded.
I agree with you that many people have expectations of privacy at work that are unjustified. But business' themselves should have an expectation of privacy, be it the whole office building for a non-retail establishment or the managers office at a retail store. And if, as the article says, investigators are able to enter a business and conduct a warrantless search on an employee's business-owned computer without cause or justification, than individual expectations of privacy, even at home, are also threatened.
The bottom line is, if the investigator shows up without a warrant and I'm the owner and don't consent to the search of my employee's business computer, the investigator should either stop or proceed under the same rules that govern searching a residence without a warrant, which are pretty strict. That is what the author is warning us about. It is a subtle, but important distinction, and one I didn't catch on my first reading of the article.
"Ziegler is important, because if employees have no protected privacy rights, then the government can enter a private workplace, without cause, without a warrant, with or without the employer's consent and search employee computers."
Regardless of how one feels about the right to individual privacy in the workplace, surely we can all agree that the government conducting warrantless searches on a business' property without the consent of the business and without cause is a bad thing, right?
I'm trying to stay out of the way and let the community debate this one, since I posed the initial question, but I'll respond to this for clarity. I'm a political science student who's planning on attending law school to study intellectual property and media law. If it sounds like an "official" wrote the initial question, it is only because, (a) I'm used to framing these types of questions and debates for papers and (2) it was the only way I could come up with to posit the question in as neutral a way as possible.
On a side note and violating my pledge to stay out of the way, I'll add that I see this question as potentially helping to clarify what I see as the two cheif arguments against DRM: Consumer protection concerns and freedom of speech issues. Now, I'll get back out of the way for a bit.
Better late than never...
How clueful will Cingular be in sales and tech support? I read somewhere that Apple will be providing technical support. To what extent they'll be handling issues that aren't clearly technical support for the phone, such as network support or Cingular customer service is unclear.
Will it support 802.11N so that it doesn't knock an N network down to G wherever it goes? It'd be pretty stupid to have an N network if your iPhone on your desk knocks you down to G. No, it doesn't appear to support 802.11n, according to Apple.
All in all, it still looks pretty dang cool to me.
"Are the morally corrupted Yoo family professors more or less damaging to open and frank discourse than/.ers who throw around personal attacks rather than engaging a good faith argument? I mean, I don't agree with Professor Yoo on most (any?) of his points, but, my goodness, calling him morally corrupt? Come on, you can do better than that, right? Right?"
Now, care to actually answer the question I'm asking? Is vitriol over this argument necessary? "We disagree, you're immoral!" I'm pretty sure people can disagree on these types of matters and still both be making an honest attempt at finding the Truth (with a capitol T). Your need to call people names and impugn their motives (just because you disagree) is, as Jon Stewart puts it, "hurting America." And Slashdot. So stop.
And yes, I realize how futile a request this is on Slashdot. I ask it not in the hopes that I can change the attitudes here, but only because I call them like I see them.
"However, neither is helping the notion that the Yoo family produces a lot of morally corrupt professors."
Are the morally corrupted Yoo family professors more or less damaging to open and frank discourse than/.ers who throw around ad hominem attacks rather than engaging a good faith argument? I mean, I don't agree with Professor Yoo on most (any?) of his points, but, my goodness, calling him morally corrupt? Come on, you can do better than that, right? Right?
1. Perhaps you meant "The phrase 'believe in' can also mean 'have confidence in'."
2. I know the many meanings of "believe". And yet, my belief in the sheer stupidity of this usage continues. There are so many better ways to express a confidence (or lack thereof) than using "belief" in a tortured manner. Use them.
Huh? Did the third sentence make any sense? I realize that it is Sunday morning, but c'mon!
As for the latter comment: "I just don't believe in the justice system any more." Maxo, let me assure you that the justice system, in fact, does exist. Maybe I can stop believing in morons...
Slashdot Mirror
Time Warner digital cable: $61.30/month x 12 months = $735.60/year.
I want to watch the following shows, which cost the following amounts on the iTunes Music Store:
What's that, I can get all the shows I watch on iTunes and get movies and play my music all through one interface? I can't imagine why people would go for this...
The only downside is that that you can't browse cable tv offerings at 3:00 AM, the shows aren't currently HD and the price break is dependent on how much content you use. I expect that, within the next year, Apple will offer a subscription-based service (betcha it's still tiered, based on usage) and will start offering HD content. It may not be exactly the same thing as cable+DVR but it's pretty close to being competitive. Not too bad for version 1.0.
A transition back to mechanical voting would be a poor choice for a number of reasons. Mechanical voting machines are labor intensive and, gasp, prone to mechanical failures. Paper ballots, too, have substantial downsides, particularly because there is no good way to automate vote counting.
Optical scan and Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are the best two choices. There are ways to address the security concerns that surround DRE systems and they have the added benefit of addressing certain problems (usability, accessibility, etc.) in a far more elegant way than optical scan systems.
The bottom line is that voting system development is a process, not a product. No one technology should be declared the clear winner without a commensurate articulation of why it is the best choice for the situation.
For those making the decision of what voting system to use, there are many different (and often competing) values which must be considered, including, in no particular order:
Computerized voting machines, when well-designed, are much more user-friendly than nearly any other voting system and can address many of these other values in a comparatively trivial way. For instance, computerized voting systems can provide auditory feedback to blind voters, can easily display ballots in multiple languages.
Furthermore, VVPTs are not the best option for keeping a concurrent record of the system's functionality. One option I've encountered may be far superior to this: A video record of each voting terminal while in use.
My point here is not to argue against VVPTs (I think they have their place), so much as to further expand the debate. By understanding all of the considerations that must be made in selecting a voting system, perhaps we can have a more expansive and illuminating discussion about it here on Slashdot. Any potential solution (VVPTs, optical scan, paper ballots) will have both merits and flaws. But boiling it down to a "They're stealing the vote. VVPTs will save democracy!" doesn't do anybody any good, it just confuses the issue. As per usual, a little research into the issue will expose it as far less black and white than it first appears.
Bait and switch is when a seller advertises one product that he cannot possibly sell and then push another product when customers come in looking for the advertised product. For instance, if he advertised "Playstation 3 for $99.99," did not ever even order any Playstation 3's, and then pushed Wii's on customers who came in looking for the Playstation 3's, he would be conducting a bait and switch scheme.
A loss leader is when the seller advertises one product that she has limited supplies of, sell out early, and then push another product when customers come in looking for the advertised product. For instance, if she advertised "Playstation 3 for $99.99.! Supplies limited, first come, first serve!", sold the 50 playstation 3's she had in stock, and then pushed Wii's on customers who came in looking for the Playstation 3's, she would be conducting a loss leader.
Bait and switch is outright fraud and illegal. The loss leader is legal, because the seller is upfront about the limited supplies.
In this case, I'm not sure that Best Buy's actions fall into either of these two categories. I expect that, as companies that combine brick & mortar and web stores encounter these types of situations, they are likely to tell you to order online for instore pickup or to explain upfront that they don't honor online pricing instore.
Besides, I think the notion that the instore price should be the same as online is laughable anyway. Instore costs more to stock, pay for salesperson, etc. Warehousing goods to ship and paying for customer service representatives who only respond via email is much cheaper and thus the online store has the benefit in price. If you buy instore, you are paying for the salesperson's (often limited) knowledge and expertise, and, more importantly, the convenience of instant gratification.
And you've been mislead by the media into thinking that judges aren't supposed to make law. In fact, in a common law system, that is part of a judge's job and has been since before the U.S. was founded.
I agree with you that many people have expectations of privacy at work that are unjustified. But business' themselves should have an expectation of privacy, be it the whole office building for a non-retail establishment or the managers office at a retail store. And if, as the article says, investigators are able to enter a business and conduct a warrantless search on an employee's business-owned computer without cause or justification, than individual expectations of privacy, even at home, are also threatened.
The bottom line is, if the investigator shows up without a warrant and I'm the owner and don't consent to the search of my employee's business computer, the investigator should either stop or proceed under the same rules that govern searching a residence without a warrant, which are pretty strict. That is what the author is warning us about. It is a subtle, but important distinction, and one I didn't catch on my first reading of the article.
Regardless of how one feels about the right to individual privacy in the workplace, surely we can all agree that the government conducting warrantless searches on a business' property without the consent of the business and without cause is a bad thing, right?
Just be sure what you use isn't vulnerable...
I'm trying to stay out of the way and let the community debate this one, since I posed the initial question, but I'll respond to this for clarity. I'm a political science student who's planning on attending law school to study intellectual property and media law. If it sounds like an "official" wrote the initial question, it is only because, (a) I'm used to framing these types of questions and debates for papers and (2) it was the only way I could come up with to posit the question in as neutral a way as possible.
On a side note and violating my pledge to stay out of the way, I'll add that I see this question as potentially helping to clarify what I see as the two cheif arguments against DRM: Consumer protection concerns and freedom of speech issues. Now, I'll get back out of the way for a bit.
All in all, it still looks pretty dang cool to me.
I am struck by the sheer elegance of your proposition. Why didn't I think of that?
Fair enough. I'll correct it. :)
/.ers who throw around personal attacks rather than engaging a good faith argument? I mean, I don't agree with Professor Yoo on most (any?) of his points, but, my goodness, calling him morally corrupt? Come on, you can do better than that, right? Right?"
"Are the morally corrupted Yoo family professors more or less damaging to open and frank discourse than
Now, care to actually answer the question I'm asking? Is vitriol over this argument necessary? "We disagree, you're immoral!" I'm pretty sure people can disagree on these types of matters and still both be making an honest attempt at finding the Truth (with a capitol T). Your need to call people names and impugn their motives (just because you disagree) is, as Jon Stewart puts it, "hurting America." And Slashdot. So stop. And yes, I realize how futile a request this is on Slashdot. I ask it not in the hopes that I can change the attitudes here, but only because I call them like I see them.
"However, neither is helping the notion that the Yoo family produces a lot of morally corrupt professors."
/.ers who throw around ad hominem attacks rather than engaging a good faith argument? I mean, I don't agree with Professor Yoo on most (any?) of his points, but, my goodness, calling him morally corrupt? Come on, you can do better than that, right? Right?
Are the morally corrupted Yoo family professors more or less damaging to open and frank discourse than
"Either way lots of users won't figure out what the problem is and will simply blame the hardware vendor/format."
If this happened to me, I'd blame the format even more if I knew what the problem was.
"Since when did this store become a fascist regime?"
"Since you brought that bullshit tape in!"
- Jack Black and John Cusack in High Fidelity
Never trust a man who prefers Boston to Tom Waits.
It seems to me that, even if they are "Anglo-Norman," since the term English is derived from Angle, English still fits fine.
Ladies & Gentleman, reason has left the building.
Please cite the evidence on which this opinion is based. I am skeptical of this claim and everyone else here should be too.
1. Perhaps you meant "The phrase 'believe in' can also mean 'have confidence in'."
2. I know the many meanings of "believe". And yet, my belief in the sheer stupidity of this usage continues. There are so many better ways to express a confidence (or lack thereof) than using "belief" in a tortured manner. Use them.
Huh? Did the third sentence make any sense? I realize that it is Sunday morning, but c'mon!
As for the latter comment: "I just don't believe in the justice system any more." Maxo, let me assure you that the justice system, in fact, does exist. Maybe I can stop believing in morons...
I'm pretty sure the RIAA's attorney would have dismissed you during jury seletction.
Perhaps you are looking for the TEACH Act?
hear, hear!