Having worked with dBase in multiple applications I can say that there's a good reason for all the 'plumbing'.
Everything's nice when it all works.
But, when it doesn't work, how do you fix it? How do you recover from it? How do you track these problems?
dBase was great until it simply wouldn't load. Then you had to dig through the system for every known bug, since most of the error messages weren't exactly helpful.
Or if you corrupted a file or set of files when bombing out of a locked app. BOHICA.
All this extra 'plumbing' is in there for a reason. So we don't have to do all sorts of arcane things for all sorts of arcane reasons, just to maybe get something halfway working again.
Part of the problem is the durability of these panels. The affordable ones have relatively short lifespans (under 10 years, and at that point, still haven't saved enough to justify their cost). The ones that ARE durable enough to last longer are hideously expensive, and not the sort of thing most people have the cash for.
Also, there's the fact that solar power is not a viable solution everywhere in the world. Sure, in Arizona, California, etc, it is a wonderful "free energy" thing.
In Pacific Northwest, the northern Midwest, etc, especially during the winter months, solar power is a complete non-option.
At it's base, it's not even about "can they be hacked". It's about a much easier benchmark of trust. Has the machine been tampered with?
That's all that's really needed to invalidate vast blocks of votes.
So, if you want to deny people their vote, go in late in the day, and just tamper with the machine in a visible way (cutting seals, etc).
At least with a paper receipt system, they could do vote correlation if the machines were tampered with. And they're already pre-checked by the voter themselves.
I figure, if TPTB continue making stuff that isn't really consumer friendly, the consumer really should stop consuming the crap they're being shoveled.
All kudos to Ubuntu for their work on making stuff eminently usable, even for complete dumbasses.
But this idea that EVERYBODY needs to be on Linux NEEDS TO FUCKING DIE!
There's always going to be a group of people who just will NEVER be prepared for Linux REGARDLESS of what you do! These are usually the same class of users who break something in their Win/Mac box with a generally hourly frequency.
As to the group of people who have "neither the time nor the inclination", I can only say FUCKING LEARN!
You don't drive a car without some education about how it works. Granted, driving could be used as an analogy to the UI. But those who change their oil every 30,000 (yes thirty thousand) miles, don't put air in the tires until they're running on rims, don't change the tires at about the same frequency, and generally treat the vehicle like a mobile battering ram and take it on the EXACT straightest course between two points (regardless of terrain, obstructions, etc), don't have a car for very long. In the same way people who beat the living fuck out of their OS don't have a usable system very long.
Nowadays, in most modern, first-world countries, some basic education about computers (more than just "This is Windows. This is Office."). This way, if someone asks a trivial hardware question, they're not greeted with a stunned-cow look and a long, drawn-out "duh-uh?".
Personally, I'm hoping that both HD-DVD and BluRay have absoloute ABYSMAL distribution and customer acceptance.
Then, maybe, these companies can go back and design a more consumer-friendly medium that people can actually buy and use without worrying that they're going to get their legs busted because they didn't pay their protection money to the various **AA for the right to look and listen THIS week. Oh, and for the tech geek in me, one that really DOES offer significantly better image quality.
Right now, the VQ difference between DVD of, say, SuperBit quality, and an HD-DVD is negligible on a completely HD-ready/compliant/functioning system, and completely NOT worth the price premium.
Okay, brand new craptop (Dell Latitude 120L with a 1GB memory upgrade). WinXP Pro. A gig of RAM. All the hardware on it is supported by both Drake and Eft.
The LiveCD looks just fine. Nearly identical to the Drake LiveCD.
The installer worked beautifully, as always. And you can now resize your NTFS partitions quite easily with the partitioner.
Rebooted into the full install and started poking around.
Got all my regular software in. Automatix took care of the rest of the necessities.
On the whole, Eft seemed a bit more responsive than Dapper has on other machines of similar power.
However, I noticed that the Disk manager was missing from the admin menu. So I couldn't just dig into my NTFS partition. Bummer. Oh well,/etc/fstab mod here I come. Except that, even after a reboot, and double and triple checking that the entry in/etc/fstab are correct, Eft simply WOULD NOT mount my NTFS partition.
As I need to occasionally leech files from my Windows install, this kinda pissing in my cornflakes. And everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else works beautifully!
Tried to reinstall. Identical problem happened.
So, ripped it out again and went back to Dapper.
Okay, to be absoloutely FAIR about this, we WERE told that Edgy was just that. So it's not surprising that there are issues happening here. But people have been so ingrained with the "Gotta have the latest and greatest" idiocy that problems like this are inevitable.
Re:And like feng shui, IT'S BULLSHIT!
on
Slashdot's Vastu
·
· Score: 1
Note, I never said good composition using these rules is impossible (though from the state of the author's own site, it looks somewhat unlikely since their idea of good composition is limited to color scheme).
And yeah, people can do the right thing for the wrong reason. That doesn't change the fact that they're contributing to a lemming effect. Of course, if we could convince them all to just jump over a cliff...that'd be a good thing too.;-)
"You simply reject it because the rules are not derived from the first principles of logic"
Among other things. But thanks for assigning my motives to me...
Re:And like feng shui, IT'S BULLSHIT!
on
Slashdot's Vastu
·
· Score: 1
"How can attention to good composition be bullshit?"
Attention to good composition isn't bullshit. It's a variable with millions of opinions on "correctness".
This isn't even that. We start talking about "aligning with fire and earth....", you get the idea.
But if they left the pseudomystical psychobabble out, it'd just be another boring talk about good composition. But NOOO! It's VASTU!
*Waves hands, wiggles fingers, and pops eyes out*
OOOOOOOH!
Spare me...
Re:Feng Shui is correct
on
Slashdot's Vastu
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"While the explanations claiming "energies" for Feng Shui may not be correct, the human psychology behind it is."
Yeah. There's a sucker born every minute.
"Those same principles may or may not be applicable with regards to web design, but don't discount entirely that which you clearly do not understand."
Yeah. And my cash-mishandling invisible man in the sky who is going to sentence me to eternity of fire and brimstone and suffering...but loves me can beat up yours too!
The problem is, I DO understand it. This is why I call it like I see it. Bullshit. First to last.
And like feng shui, IT'S BULLSHIT!
on
Slashdot's Vastu
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Seriously, all crap like this is, is a way to justify stupid expenditures based on some self-riteous asshole's personal opinions.
Only people with double-digit IQ or a severe case of money poisoning actually listen to these jackasses.
I'm not the one who's going around claiming a product is something that it currently IS NOT.
So who exactly is spouting nonsense here?
If you want to regurgitate marketing copy, cool! Good for you.
If you don't like being corrected when that copy turns out to be all buzz and no backing you have two choices:
1: Get your facts straight in the first place. 2: Deal with it.
I have ZERO problem with Apple claiming their product is "Unix-like", or "Unix-y", or whatever. But claiming to be Unix, when it isn't. I have the exact same reaction when someone does the same thing with Linux, BSD, what-have-you.
Sorry. But if it isn't certified as Unix (or at least meets the full criteria for Unix), it ain't Unix.
"You won't be missed."
And this is the other real problem I have with Apple.
It's not the hardware. It's not the software (though there are certain things I'd do differently).
It's the dishonest marketing and the massive elitist segment of it's user base.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing is, this also impacts retailers as well.
They now have to buy all new cash drawers to accomodate newly resized bills.
And while not horrendously expensive, the amount of money spent for this with larger establishments will be non-trivial.
They announce a recall on products that are now between 2 and 3-1/2 years old!
How many people actually KEPT these pieces of crap after that long? Damn few!
Bravo on your timeliness Sony!
Gimme a fucking break!
Having worked with dBase in multiple applications I can say that there's a good reason for all the 'plumbing'.
Everything's nice when it all works.
But, when it doesn't work, how do you fix it? How do you recover from it? How do you track these problems?
dBase was great until it simply wouldn't load. Then you had to dig through the system for every known bug, since most of the error messages weren't exactly helpful.
Or if you corrupted a file or set of files when bombing out of a locked app. BOHICA.
All this extra 'plumbing' is in there for a reason. So we don't have to do all sorts of arcane things for all sorts of arcane reasons, just to maybe get something halfway working again.
here
Part of the problem is the durability of these panels. The affordable ones have relatively short lifespans (under 10 years, and at that point, still haven't saved enough to justify their cost). The ones that ARE durable enough to last longer are hideously expensive, and not the sort of thing most people have the cash for.
Also, there's the fact that solar power is not a viable solution everywhere in the world. Sure, in Arizona, California, etc, it is a wonderful "free energy" thing.
In Pacific Northwest, the northern Midwest, etc, especially during the winter months, solar power is a complete non-option.
Doing it so that it's INEXPENSIVE and easy...THAT is the real challenge.
"you'd do more than 20 Kyoto Accords put together"
Considering the fact that some of the major signatories to the Kyoto Protocols simply aren't following them...
At it's base, it's not even about "can they be hacked". It's about a much easier benchmark of trust. Has the machine been tampered with?
That's all that's really needed to invalidate vast blocks of votes.
So, if you want to deny people their vote, go in late in the day, and just tamper with the machine in a visible way (cutting seals, etc).
At least with a paper receipt system, they could do vote correlation if the machines were tampered with. And they're already pre-checked by the voter themselves.
Notice the part where I said "consumer friendly".
I figure, if TPTB continue making stuff that isn't really consumer friendly, the consumer really should stop consuming the crap they're being shoveled.
All kudos to Ubuntu for their work on making stuff eminently usable, even for complete dumbasses.
But this idea that EVERYBODY needs to be on Linux NEEDS TO FUCKING DIE!
There's always going to be a group of people who just will NEVER be prepared for Linux REGARDLESS of what you do! These are usually the same class of users who break something in their Win/Mac box with a generally hourly frequency.
As to the group of people who have "neither the time nor the inclination", I can only say FUCKING LEARN!
You don't drive a car without some education about how it works. Granted, driving could be used as an analogy to the UI. But those who change their oil every 30,000 (yes thirty thousand) miles, don't put air in the tires until they're running on rims, don't change the tires at about the same frequency, and generally treat the vehicle like a mobile battering ram and take it on the EXACT straightest course between two points (regardless of terrain, obstructions, etc), don't have a car for very long. In the same way people who beat the living fuck out of their OS don't have a usable system very long.
Nowadays, in most modern, first-world countries, some basic education about computers (more than just "This is Windows. This is Office."). This way, if someone asks a trivial hardware question, they're not greeted with a stunned-cow look and a long, drawn-out "duh-uh?".
Personally, I'm hoping that both HD-DVD and BluRay have absoloute ABYSMAL distribution and customer acceptance.
Then, maybe, these companies can go back and design a more consumer-friendly medium that people can actually buy and use without worrying that they're going to get their legs busted because they didn't pay their protection money to the various **AA for the right to look and listen THIS week. Oh, and for the tech geek in me, one that really DOES offer significantly better image quality.
Right now, the VQ difference between DVD of, say, SuperBit quality, and an HD-DVD is negligible on a completely HD-ready/compliant/functioning system, and completely NOT worth the price premium.
YOU BASTARDS!
Anyone got the meat of the article?
Wonderful.
"not in tropical rainforests, but in temperate rainforests, where the problem is just as dire."
Never mind that most of the logging in temperate forests happens on new growth lumber planted SPECIFICALLY as a renewable resources...
Nope. Good call, but I thought of that.
It was not there.
Okay, brand new craptop (Dell Latitude 120L with a 1GB memory upgrade). WinXP Pro. A gig of RAM. All the hardware on it is supported by both Drake and Eft.
/etc/fstab mod here I come. Except that, even after a reboot, and double and triple checking that the entry in /etc/fstab are correct, Eft simply WOULD NOT mount my NTFS partition.
The LiveCD looks just fine. Nearly identical to the Drake LiveCD.
The installer worked beautifully, as always. And you can now resize your NTFS partitions quite easily with the partitioner.
Rebooted into the full install and started poking around.
Got all my regular software in. Automatix took care of the rest of the necessities.
On the whole, Eft seemed a bit more responsive than Dapper has on other machines of similar power.
However, I noticed that the Disk manager was missing from the admin menu. So I couldn't just dig into my NTFS partition. Bummer. Oh well,
As I need to occasionally leech files from my Windows install, this kinda pissing in my cornflakes. And everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else works beautifully!
Tried to reinstall. Identical problem happened.
So, ripped it out again and went back to Dapper.
Okay, to be absoloutely FAIR about this, we WERE told that Edgy was just that. So it's not surprising that there are issues happening here. But people have been so ingrained with the "Gotta have the latest and greatest" idiocy that problems like this are inevitable.
Note, I never said good composition using these rules is impossible (though from the state of the author's own site, it looks somewhat unlikely since their idea of good composition is limited to color scheme).
;-)
And yeah, people can do the right thing for the wrong reason. That doesn't change the fact that they're contributing to a lemming effect. Of course, if we could convince them all to just jump over a cliff...that'd be a good thing too.
"You simply reject it because the rules are not derived from the first principles of logic"
Among other things. But thanks for assigning my motives to me...
"How can attention to good composition be bullshit?"
Attention to good composition isn't bullshit. It's a variable with millions of opinions on "correctness".
This isn't even that. We start talking about "aligning with fire and earth....", you get the idea.
But if they left the pseudomystical psychobabble out, it'd just be another boring talk about good composition. But NOOO! It's VASTU!
*Waves hands, wiggles fingers, and pops eyes out*
OOOOOOOH!
Spare me...
"While the explanations claiming "energies" for Feng Shui may not be correct, the human psychology behind it is."
Yeah. There's a sucker born every minute.
"Those same principles may or may not be applicable with regards to web design, but don't discount entirely that which you clearly do not understand."
Yeah. And my cash-mishandling invisible man in the sky who is going to sentence me to eternity of fire and brimstone and suffering...but loves me can beat up yours too!
The problem is, I DO understand it. This is why I call it like I see it. Bullshit. First to last.
Seriously, all crap like this is, is a way to justify stupid expenditures based on some self-riteous asshole's personal opinions.
Only people with double-digit IQ or a severe case of money poisoning actually listen to these jackasses.
Then Slashdot came and booted his wide ass off!
CAN'T...GET...NEW...RELEASE! DAMMIT!!!
I'm not the one who's going around claiming a product is something that it currently IS NOT.
So who exactly is spouting nonsense here?
If you want to regurgitate marketing copy, cool! Good for you.
If you don't like being corrected when that copy turns out to be all buzz and no backing you have two choices:
1: Get your facts straight in the first place.
2: Deal with it.
I have ZERO problem with Apple claiming their product is "Unix-like", or "Unix-y", or whatever. But claiming to be Unix, when it isn't. I have the exact same reaction when someone does the same thing with Linux, BSD, what-have-you.
Sorry. But if it isn't certified as Unix (or at least meets the full criteria for Unix), it ain't Unix.
"You won't be missed."
And this is the other real problem I have with Apple.
It's not the hardware. It's not the software (though there are certain things I'd do differently).
It's the dishonest marketing and the massive elitist segment of it's user base.
They want their sheep-think police state back...
"With the release of Leopard there will be no more denying that OS X is UNIX."
With the SERVER product, maybe. With the desktop product?
Also, I would rather not rely on Apple PR blurbs for real technical data on this. I'd want third-party confirmation first.
Or didn't I already mention something about sheep and lock-step thinking?
I'd been hoping something this stupid wouldn't be allowed to stand long...