One of the higher ups at Microsoft recently made the mistake of telling the employees in the Windows division that each person there helped generate more than a million dollars per person per year. Of course, all the employees then looked at each other wondering whether they were underpaid considering very few were actually millionaires.
Outsourcers have no vested interest in the long-term success of your project.
A couple years ago we used some guys from Accenture to work on a project. They sent over their best guys for the negotiation. But once we signed, we never saw them again. Instead, we got some junior programmers fresh out of school who didn't know what they were doing.
Once they started working, it seemed like their entire goal was to delay finishing the project in order to keep getting a paycheck. We ended up late and over budget. The end result was some shitty-ass code that barely worked and which we didn't use.
All this griping about foreign outsourcing reminds me of this. Just like domestic outsourcing companies, foreign companies and their workers are only interested in getting your company's money. The quality of the code doesn't matter to them, except if they don't get paid. That only makes them want to do the bare minimum not to get fired, which often means crappy code.
If you want good, quality work, then don't outsource at all - foreign or domestic. Keep it in house, where the workers actually care about the product they put out and aren't interested in doing a half-assed job. Employees know that the quality of their work matters. These people know they'll need to support this code in the future, so they make sure to get it right the first time.
the author hasn't made it at all clear which country their firm is located in
Business schools train their bachelor's level students to know the legal requirements and options of their own country. Presumably, if the original poster was dealing with another business in his own country, then his manager would already know what to do to remedy the situation and we wouldn't be here writing about it on Slashdot.
From that alone, I think we can reasonably imply that he's using a firm based in another country.
Me:If you want to find anything negative, it was a jab at the power structure of a poor country trying to regulate something they know nothing about because they can't afford the equipment. It was a jab at them being poor.
You:I was pointing out your insensitivity in "jabbing" at the poor.
How is my statement "insensitive"? I was not "jabbing" the poor. I was pointing out that the article was!
You:I was worried for a while there. It's good to know we are not being racist.
And the point of this is...? What? I can't tell.
How is it racist to point out that the majority of the people in India are poor? This is a factual truth. I can pull up statistics if you'd like.
I didn't even bring up their race. I brought up their nationality. And since when does nationality equal race? It's certainly not true in America or most of the first world countries.
A 1995 vintage machine, long after 5.25 floppies were abandoned, would go for what, $20?
I remember machines from that time period. 5.25" floppies were being phased out, but they were hardly abandoned. You could still get them on machines for backward compatibility.
And yes, you could get a such a machine for $20 now. But if it's from 1995, we're talking about a Pentium 100. It'd have a 100 MB hard drive and 16 MB of RAM.
And hey, where do you get 5.25 floppies in 2003 anyway?
It took me less than a minute of looking. Look on google's froogle. I'm sure you can also find them on eBay.
But seriously, to be racist, you don't have to be declarative. You don't have to say "I am a racist. I look down on Indians." You can accomplish that by telling untrue stories that portray Indians and their social institutions in a belittling manner. Such as the stapled floppy episode.
If you think the story is untrue, then attack the story. If you think what I'm writing is untrue, then attack my writing.
Calling someone a racist is a knee-jerk reaction that isn't warranted. It's an ad-hominem counter attack that doesn't truely address my statements. A true statement is true regardless of it's source.
This is just a racist joke on Indians: they're so poor, they're so ignorant, they're so backward, they're so inept ha ha ha it's a great day to be a white bastard in the good ole US Of A.
How is this not racist towards white people? You see, that racism card works both ways. At least I addressed your statements.
Yeah, todays programmers grew up with computers in there schools. Right. Computers in my area weren't in schools until the mid 80s and they were Apple IIgs. I was never "formally" taught how to type until 7th grade (22 years old now). What you may be talking about are todays kids but not todays programmers. Todays experienced programmers grew up in the 70s before computers were in schools, only CS departments had them in colleges and those usually took punch cards.
I said students grew up on top of the line systems. I didn't say these systems were necessarily at school.
I was born in 1975. My family bought a Commodore Vic 20 in the 2nd grade. We upgraded to an Apple 2c in the 3rd grade. We then bought an IBM PC in the 4th grade. I took my first programming course in the 7th grade. I am now a programmer. And I know plenty of other people who followed that same pattern, so I'm no anomaly.
Computer science students graduating today had newer equipment than what was available to me. Programmers older than me may not have had any computer experience when they were growing up. On the other hand, they may have had experiences like Bill Gates sneaking into the UW computer lab in high school.
Anyway, that certainly places us all in a better position than someone who didn't even see a computer until college.
A 5.25" floppy drive is available only with second hand dealers in India and costs slightly more than the isual floppy drive. 8" drives are all in the museums! A CD-R costs half as much a floppy. A CD-R drive costs exactly as much as a floppy-drive and a CD-RW costs about twice as much!
Obviously, there are people in India with a good amount of money. Not everyone is making the average of $450 a year. But, how many average people are going out and buying brand new systems? How many average people are buying brand new components? How many average people are getting by using older systems that still have 5.25" drives?
Sorry to disappoint you but the rich and the poor use similar systems!
I seriously doubt that an average person in India making $450 a year would go out and buy my $1500 system. My video card alone cost me about what the average person makes in an entire year.
Because floppies and floppy drives aren't manufactured anymore.
Floppies and floppy drives were used for 25+ years. There are plenty of them still floating around out there in perfect working condition.
Also, what makes you think that a third-world person earning $450 a year would buy a computer brand new?
Not to mention that you can't fit a single application on a floppy that's in any way modern.
People work with what they have. Why would they want the newest version of Office when it'd take their entire year's salary to buy it? They could go download WordPerfect from the internet. Or, even better, just use the Edit program from the old DOS days. That's still shipped in Windows if they wanted to use that.
I bet that an old WordPerfect or a Ms-Dos 3.0 copy on a floppy would be harder and more expensive for the Indians to obtain than a dvd drive and win2k.
try being white for a while and the amount of racism you'll see being dished out against non-whites will leave you curled up crying in a corner.
I've lived all over the US and I have to say it depends on where you live. When I lived in Texas, racism was so prevalent that white people often and openly referred to black people as niggers. However, in all the six years that I've lived in Seattle, I haven't heard the term once.
You're talking about a country where the average citizen earns $450 a year. The average person can't afford a computer. Students see their first computer when they go to college. Then they have to learn how to use it, learn how to type, and learn computer science all at the same time.
Contrast this to the first-world countries where students have grow up with top of the line systems. Elementary students learn typing at the same time they learn how to write. And where high school students already know programming and contribute to open source projects.
The only thing going in India's favor is the fact that their smartest and brightest get into computer science. So, after four years they are halfway decent. However, that does not necessarily make them equivalent to coders in the first world who get into computer science for the love of programming.
Even in the thirdest world places of the third world, there is no way anyone was using 5.25 or 8 inch floppies two years ago.
Why would you think that? We're talking about a country where the average citizen earns $450 a year. If the average person is able to afford a computer, then it's not going to be a top of the line system.
This is just a racist jab at "those comical brown fellows".
This was a jab not based on racism. Nothing was brought up on their skin color. There was no defamation of their nationality. The article talked about the courts, the police, and the law and nothing else.
If you want to find anything negative, it was a jab at the power structure of a poor country trying to regulate something they know nothing about because they can't afford the equipment. It was a jab at them being poor.
it wasn't THAT bad. It gets above average scores consistently and I enjoyed it as well as many others. I mean when it first came out people were saying it was great, even those that finished it. Now everyone is calling it a disappointment. WTF
The graphics were good. However, the gameplay was about the same as a 2D scroller. The game constantly kept you on the same path, without giving you true freedom of movement. You basically had the choice to either move forward or backward.
Half-Life 2 had this problem as well, but it certainly wasn't as noticeable. Although there was a definite way to go in the game, Half-Life 2 maps were larger and more open than Doom 3. This gave more of the illusion of control.
What we need are more games like FarCry were the user can truely move anywhere they want to go.
In other words, it doesn't matter if the election results are not changed, we need to know EXACTLY how many people voted for each candidate.
Well, if you can design a electronic voting system that doesn't involve any humans to muck up the counting while still being fair and open, then go ahead.
Basically, this system must do the same work as a human, for about the same price, and do it fair, honestly, and openly. It must work for people visiting the polling place as well as those who mail in absentee ballots. It must accurately identify the signature on the back of each absentee ballot against a signature list kept on file. Further, this system must securely hold these absentee ballots and ensure that not a single one gets lost. Further more, this system must accurately count all of these ballots, including the ones that were filled out incorrectly.
Until such an electronic voting system is put in place, then your need of knowing EXACTLY how many people voted will not be fulfilled. Humans will have to continue counting votes as they have until now. And errors will result in these counts because you're dealing with humans.
Maybe you didn't do so because if people knew you were quoting The Grange, they would be less likely to believe it? And well they should.
Yes, I quoted the Grange, who was quoting the Supreme Court. Why don't you comment on the merits of the statement itself instead of where it came from?
I-872 was modeled on the statements of the Supreme Court that they themselves said would be legal. In other words, you can't comment on the merits of the argument because you would lose.
You think it will help third parties, which it in no way does, in the least bit.
Where's your proof? How will this hurt third parties? This law makes parties less relevant, especially the big two standing in the way of the third parties.
And whereas previously, all third parties could get in the general election, now -- as a general rule, which will rarely if ever be broken -- none will.
And whereas previously, all third parties could get in the general election, few third party candidates would actually get elected because no one wanted to throw their vote away. Everyone knew everyone else would either vote Republican or Democrat, so no one voted for the third party.
Now since the primary decides which two candidates go to the election rather than the final winner, more people will vote for the candidate they like instead of along party lines. If a third party candidate then makes it to the election, then voters again won't feel like they're throwing their votes away by voting for them.
Me: In this governor's election, the only votes that mattered were votes for either Rossi or Gregoire.
You: That doesn't even begin to make sense. Every vote matters just as much as every other.
No, the votes that mattered were the votes for Gregoire or Rossi. The 500 or so votes that went to Ron Simms didn't matter in the final count, except that they didn't go to Gregoire or Rossi.
You may be talking about the fact that you could only choose one party's primary to vote in, but that in no way constituted registering or declaring a party. This was quite explicit in the law.
This makes absolutely no sense. The reason you chose a party on the ballot was that you were a member of that party. That's why the old system was ruled unconstitutional in the first place - the old blanket primary meant that parties couldn't choose their own members.
Right, which means that you are taking away the right of people to put candidates on the ballot, which is the greatest crime of the whole system. Right now, if I get enough signatures, I can get my candidate -- whoever he is -- in the election. This right of the people is being stolen by I-872.
Your candidate will end up in the primary. Then the people can decide if he'll end up on the ballot. That sounds fair to me.
Me: Parties will have to recruit candidates with broad public support and run campaigns that appeal to all the voters.
You: No, sorry. The only time a Democrat and a Republican won't get on the ballot is when there's a lot more voters who identify with one party over the other and there's two strong candidates of that party, or when there's two strong candidates in both parties (so each would get around 1/4 of the votes).
How is that? I'm a Democrat, but I agree with a lot of the Libertarian platform. I also know a lot of Republicans who also agree with the Libertarians. I would never throw my vote away to a Libertarian in a general election, but in a primary I would since it doesn't decide the final winner. If a Libertarian actually made it to a general election where there were only two candidates, then I would vote for him.
Me:I-872 gives voters more choices in the primary and better choices in the general election.
You:This is the most clear bullshit the grange spouts. The general election is the real election. It's the one most people participate in, and it's
I never claimed the Republicans did not change their argument, and in fact, I explicitly stated the opposite in the story. But you're claiming their arguments changed more than the Democrats when in fact they changed *exactly as much*.
The problem with a top two primary is that although we get to vote on the person, not the party, each party has a right to be represented in the general election.
Why is this a problem? Isn't voting for the person what we should be doing in the first place?
And if by some weird happening, two Democrats or two Republicans went onto the general election for a given race, I'm a bit curious about campaign money and issues like that.
The campaign money will flow to the candidate with the broadest appeal. Even so, the parties will be forced to adapt.
It is unlikely that two candidates from the same party will make it to the election (see vote splitting below). However, if it does happen, then it will be because the majority of the district is a single party. In the old system, the primary would have decided the ultimate winner and not the election. That is one more reason why the old system is backward and flawed.
Also, for the primary, what prevents vote splitting? Hypothetically speaking, let's say 15 Democrats run for a given race. If we use the plurality system, they may as well have a worse chance at advancing than a total of 3 Republicans running.
If all 15 of those Democrats are equally liked, then we may be screwed. But, what is the probability of that? Someone will have to have some common sense and party loyalty to drop out of the race before the primary.
Too bad for you that I-872 is unconstitutional. A blanket primary was already ruled unconstitutional in CA by the Supreme Court, and the ruling was upheld in WA by a federal circuit court (which is why we got rid of it in the first place).
Although the US Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have ruled that this form of primary is different from the partisan blanket primary previously in use in Washington state and that nonpartisan blanket primaries are not subject to the kind of legal challenge presently being made by the political parties, the major political parties have repeatedly claimed - without foundation - that the kind of qualifying primary proposed in I-872 is unconstitutional. The majority opinion of the U. S. Supreme Court in the CAL DEMO case (in 2000) went out of its way to declare what kind of primary would meet its constitutional test. They said,
"Finally, we may observe that even if all these state interests were compelling ones, Proposition 198 is not a narrowly tailored means of furthering them. Respondents could protect them all by resorting to a nonpartisan blanket primary. Generally speaking, under such a system, the State determines what qualifications it requires for a candidate to have a place on the primary ballot -- which may include nomination by established parties and voter-petition requirements for independent candidates. Each voter, regardless of party affiliation, may then vote for any candidate, and the top two vote getters (or however many the State prescribes) then move on to the general election. This system has all the characteristics of the partisan blanket primary, save the constitutionally crucial one: Primary voters are not choosing a party's nominee. Under a nonpartisan blanket primary, a State may ensure more choice, greater participation, increased "privacy," and a sense of "fairness"--all without severely burdening a political party's First Amendment right of association."
As soon as the governor's thing is finished, I hope the parties set their sights on this despicable law that steals choice and power away from the people. Most people -- like you -- had no idea what I-872 said when they voted for it.
Au contraire, I knew exactly what I was voting for when I voted for this. This law gives more choice to the people. I-872 provides incentive for people to cast ballots for the person they want most in the election, regardless of party affiliation. And I believe it will stop the practise of people voting in the primary for the most extreme candidate of the opposite party just to poison the chances of that party succeeding in the election.
Beyond that, it is incredible to me that anyone thinks we can save Democracy by taking away the right of the people to put candidates on the ballot.
In the old system that was just voted down, people did not put candidates on the ballot. Political parties put candidates on the ballot.
Please do not lie. Every vote is counted now.
Every vote is counted, but not every vote counts, which is what I meant. In this governor's election, the only votes that mattered were votes for either Rossi or Gregoire. The libertarian votes didn't count. The write in votes for Ron Sims didn't count.
Every third party is against I-872, and no one with a clue thinks this will help third parties. On the contrary, it's quite clear that this is the death of third parties.
Under I-872, you will never have to declare party or register by party in order to vote in the primary. The two candidates with the most votes in the primary will win and go on to the general election ballot. No political party is guaranteed a spot on the general election ballot. Parties will have to recruit candidates with broad public support and run campaigns that appeal to all the voters.
I-872 gives voters more choices in the primary and better choices in the general election. All the voters will decide who is on the November ballot, whether it's one Republican and one Democrat, one major and one minor party, or even an Independent. The candidates will be the people the voters want the most, regardless of party affiliation.
The hypocrisy of the Democrats here would be stunning if it weren't so predictable.
The democrats followed the election through the legal steps of the initial count, a machine recount, and then a hand recount.
Rossi was the winner of the first count by 261 votes. After that, the Republicans started asking Gregoire to concede.
Then, Rossi won the machine recount by 42 votes. After that, the Republicans started demanding Gregoire to concede.
Then, Gregoire won the hand recount by 129 votes. After that, the Republican Dino Rossi refused to concede and asked for a do-over.
If any party here is being hypocritical, then it is the Republicans. If Rossi was serious about his claim that the election was hopelessly flawed and that the Legislature should authorize a new election, then he should have made the claim after the machine recount, not after he was declared the loser in the final count.
And it happens to be an overwhelming Democrat County.
Interesting.
There is nothing particularly interesting or surprising about this. The fact of the matter is that if Rossi still wants to stay in the race, then he needs to make a compelling argument that will convince either the judiciary or the legislature that fraud occured. And he's hired 500 lawyers to help make his case.
Republicans and Democrats have both monitored the elections, sniffing out any sign of fraud. None has materialized thus far. And the vote was monitored and certified by Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican.
Anyone have any ideas on solutions to make sure this doesn't happen again?
In this election, the vote was open to governor candidates from multiple parties. Write in candidates were also allowed. This made for a good number of votes that weren't even placed for the top two candidates.
The solution to this problem was enacted into Washington state law in this election. I-872 will allow voters to select among all candidates in a primary. Ballots would indicate candidates' party preference. The two candidates receiving most votes advance to the general election, regardless of party.
So, in the general election voters will have only two choices. This will result in every voter's vote being counted.
As a side effect, I think it will also help 3rd party candidates get to the final ballot.
As mentioned in an earlier post, 266 ballots seemed to disappear, while 325 magically materialized. Again, these are not just a matter of reinterpration of marks on paper, these are entire sheets of paper that either vanished or appeared out of thin air. Christine Gregoire added a net 47 new votes to her total, Dino Rossi lost a net 12 from his.
In the first count, Rossi was ahead by 261 votes. In the second count, Rossi ended up ahead by 42 votes. In the final count, Gregoire was ahead by 129 votes. The total number of votes cast were 2.8 million. Anyone see a problem here?
The problem is that we're well within the margin of error. To get an accurate count, we need to be more precise than 0.01%. The fact that a few votes here and there seemed to disappear and reappear are just statistical anomalies. That alone is not proof of fraud.
I thought this was for governor, not a representative
Word on the street is that Rossi could make a run for Maria Cantwell's seat in congress come 2006. He could likely win considering he got 1.5 million votes out of 3 million votes.
Of course, he could likely lose considering Cantwell is considered a good congresswoman while Gregoire is considered incompetent.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the higher ups at Microsoft recently made the mistake of telling the employees in the Windows division that each person there helped generate more than a million dollars per person per year. Of course, all the employees then looked at each other wondering whether they were underpaid considering very few were actually millionaires.
Outsourcers have no vested interest in the long-term success of your project.
A couple years ago we used some guys from Accenture to work on a project. They sent over their best guys for the negotiation. But once we signed, we never saw them again. Instead, we got some junior programmers fresh out of school who didn't know what they were doing.
Once they started working, it seemed like their entire goal was to delay finishing the project in order to keep getting a paycheck. We ended up late and over budget. The end result was some shitty-ass code that barely worked and which we didn't use.
All this griping about foreign outsourcing reminds me of this. Just like domestic outsourcing companies, foreign companies and their workers are only interested in getting your company's money. The quality of the code doesn't matter to them, except if they don't get paid. That only makes them want to do the bare minimum not to get fired, which often means crappy code.
If you want good, quality work, then don't outsource at all - foreign or domestic. Keep it in house, where the workers actually care about the product they put out and aren't interested in doing a half-assed job. Employees know that the quality of their work matters. These people know they'll need to support this code in the future, so they make sure to get it right the first time.
the author hasn't made it at all clear which country their firm is located in
Business schools train their bachelor's level students to know the legal requirements and options of their own country. Presumably, if the original poster was dealing with another business in his own country, then his manager would already know what to do to remedy the situation and we wouldn't be here writing about it on Slashdot.
From that alone, I think we can reasonably imply that he's using a firm based in another country.
Microsoft has about 58,000 employees.
Me:If you want to find anything negative, it was a jab at the power structure of a poor country trying to regulate something they know nothing about because they can't afford the equipment. It was a jab at them being poor.
You:I was pointing out your insensitivity in "jabbing" at the poor.
How is my statement "insensitive"? I was not "jabbing" the poor. I was pointing out that the article was!
Me: It was a jab at them being poor.
You:I was worried for a while there. It's good to know we are not being racist.
And the point of this is...? What? I can't tell.
How is it racist to point out that the majority of the people in India are poor? This is a factual truth. I can pull up statistics if you'd like.
I didn't even bring up their race. I brought up their nationality. And since when does nationality equal race? It's certainly not true in America or most of the first world countries.
Even more so because poor and rich persons need to exchange data on compatible mediums sometimes.
I had a network card for my computer in 1994.
A 1995 vintage machine, long after 5.25 floppies were abandoned, would go for what, $20?
I remember machines from that time period. 5.25" floppies were being phased out, but they were hardly abandoned. You could still get them on machines for backward compatibility.
And yes, you could get a such a machine for $20 now. But if it's from 1995, we're talking about a Pentium 100. It'd have a 100 MB hard drive and 16 MB of RAM.
And hey, where do you get 5.25 floppies in 2003 anyway?
It took me less than a minute of looking. Look on google's froogle. I'm sure you can also find them on eBay.
But seriously, to be racist, you don't have to be declarative. You don't have to say "I am a racist. I look down on Indians." You can accomplish that by telling untrue stories that portray Indians and their social institutions in a belittling manner. Such as the stapled floppy episode.
If you think the story is untrue, then attack the story. If you think what I'm writing is untrue, then attack my writing.
Calling someone a racist is a knee-jerk reaction that isn't warranted. It's an ad-hominem counter attack that doesn't truely address my statements. A true statement is true regardless of it's source.
This is just a racist joke on Indians: they're so poor, they're so ignorant, they're so backward, they're so inept ha ha ha it's a great day to be a white bastard in the good ole US Of A.
How is this not racist towards white people? You see, that racism card works both ways. At least I addressed your statements.
Yeah, todays programmers grew up with computers in there schools. Right. Computers in my area weren't in schools until the mid 80s and they were Apple IIgs. I was never "formally" taught how to type until 7th grade (22 years old now). What you may be talking about are todays kids but not todays programmers. Todays experienced programmers grew up in the 70s before computers were in schools, only CS departments had them in colleges and those usually took punch cards.
I said students grew up on top of the line systems. I didn't say these systems were necessarily at school.
I was born in 1975. My family bought a Commodore Vic 20 in the 2nd grade. We upgraded to an Apple 2c in the 3rd grade. We then bought an IBM PC in the 4th grade. I took my first programming course in the 7th grade. I am now a programmer. And I know plenty of other people who followed that same pattern, so I'm no anomaly.
Computer science students graduating today had newer equipment than what was available to me. Programmers older than me may not have had any computer experience when they were growing up. On the other hand, they may have had experiences like Bill Gates sneaking into the UW computer lab in high school.
Anyway, that certainly places us all in a better position than someone who didn't even see a computer until college.
A 5.25" floppy drive is available only with second hand dealers in India and costs slightly more than the isual floppy drive. 8" drives are all in the museums! A CD-R costs half as much a floppy. A CD-R drive costs exactly as much as a floppy-drive and a CD-RW costs about twice as much!
Obviously, there are people in India with a good amount of money. Not everyone is making the average of $450 a year. But, how many average people are going out and buying brand new systems? How many average people are buying brand new components? How many average people are getting by using older systems that still have 5.25" drives?
Sorry to disappoint you but the rich and the poor use similar systems!
I seriously doubt that an average person in India making $450 a year would go out and buy my $1500 system. My video card alone cost me about what the average person makes in an entire year.
Because floppies and floppy drives aren't manufactured anymore.
Floppies and floppy drives were used for 25+ years. There are plenty of them still floating around out there in perfect working condition.
Also, what makes you think that a third-world person earning $450 a year would buy a computer brand new?
Not to mention that you can't fit a single application on a floppy that's in any way modern.
People work with what they have. Why would they want the newest version of Office when it'd take their entire year's salary to buy it? They could go download WordPerfect from the internet. Or, even better, just use the Edit program from the old DOS days. That's still shipped in Windows if they wanted to use that.
I bet that an old WordPerfect or a Ms-Dos 3.0 copy on a floppy would be harder and more expensive for the Indians to obtain than a dvd drive and win2k.
DVD Drive $50
Win2000 $250
Average Salary $450
Get real.
try being white for a while and the amount of racism you'll see being dished out against non-whites will leave you curled up crying in a corner.
I've lived all over the US and I have to say it depends on where you live. When I lived in Texas, racism was so prevalent that white people often and openly referred to black people as niggers. However, in all the six years that I've lived in Seattle, I haven't heard the term once.
You're talking about a country where the average citizen earns $450 a year. The average person can't afford a computer. Students see their first computer when they go to college. Then they have to learn how to use it, learn how to type, and learn computer science all at the same time.
Contrast this to the first-world countries where students have grow up with top of the line systems. Elementary students learn typing at the same time they learn how to write. And where high school students already know programming and contribute to open source projects.
The only thing going in India's favor is the fact that their smartest and brightest get into computer science. So, after four years they are halfway decent. However, that does not necessarily make them equivalent to coders in the first world who get into computer science for the love of programming.
Even in the thirdest world places of the third world, there is no way anyone was using 5.25 or 8 inch floppies two years ago.
Why would you think that? We're talking about a country where the average citizen earns $450 a year. If the average person is able to afford a computer, then it's not going to be a top of the line system.
This is just a racist jab at "those comical brown fellows".
This was a jab not based on racism. Nothing was brought up on their skin color. There was no defamation of their nationality. The article talked about the courts, the police, and the law and nothing else.
If you want to find anything negative, it was a jab at the power structure of a poor country trying to regulate something they know nothing about because they can't afford the equipment. It was a jab at them being poor.
it wasn't THAT bad. It gets above average scores consistently and I enjoyed it as well as many others. I mean when it first came out people were saying it was great, even those that finished it. Now everyone is calling it a disappointment. WTF
The graphics were good. However, the gameplay was about the same as a 2D scroller. The game constantly kept you on the same path, without giving you true freedom of movement. You basically had the choice to either move forward or backward.
Half-Life 2 had this problem as well, but it certainly wasn't as noticeable. Although there was a definite way to go in the game, Half-Life 2 maps were larger and more open than Doom 3. This gave more of the illusion of control.
What we need are more games like FarCry were the user can truely move anywhere they want to go.
In other words, it doesn't matter if the election results are not changed, we need to know EXACTLY how many people voted for each candidate.
Well, if you can design a electronic voting system that doesn't involve any humans to muck up the counting while still being fair and open, then go ahead.
Basically, this system must do the same work as a human, for about the same price, and do it fair, honestly, and openly. It must work for people visiting the polling place as well as those who mail in absentee ballots. It must accurately identify the signature on the back of each absentee ballot against a signature list kept on file. Further, this system must securely hold these absentee ballots and ensure that not a single one gets lost. Further more, this system must accurately count all of these ballots, including the ones that were filled out incorrectly.
Until such an electronic voting system is put in place, then your need of knowing EXACTLY how many people voted will not be fulfilled. Humans will have to continue counting votes as they have until now. And errors will result in these counts because you're dealing with humans.
Maybe you didn't do so because if people knew you were quoting The Grange, they would be less likely to believe it? And well they should.
Yes, I quoted the Grange, who was quoting the Supreme Court. Why don't you comment on the merits of the statement itself instead of where it came from?
I-872 was modeled on the statements of the Supreme Court that they themselves said would be legal. In other words, you can't comment on the merits of the argument because you would lose.
You think it will help third parties, which it in no way does, in the least bit.
Where's your proof? How will this hurt third parties? This law makes parties less relevant, especially the big two standing in the way of the third parties.
And whereas previously, all third parties could get in the general election, now -- as a general rule, which will rarely if ever be broken -- none will.
And whereas previously, all third parties could get in the general election, few third party candidates would actually get elected because no one wanted to throw their vote away. Everyone knew everyone else would either vote Republican or Democrat, so no one voted for the third party.
Now since the primary decides which two candidates go to the election rather than the final winner, more people will vote for the candidate they like instead of along party lines. If a third party candidate then makes it to the election, then voters again won't feel like they're throwing their votes away by voting for them.
Me: In this governor's election, the only votes that mattered were votes for either Rossi or Gregoire.
You: That doesn't even begin to make sense. Every vote matters just as much as every other.
No, the votes that mattered were the votes for Gregoire or Rossi. The 500 or so votes that went to Ron Simms didn't matter in the final count, except that they didn't go to Gregoire or Rossi.
You may be talking about the fact that you could only choose one party's primary to vote in, but that in no way constituted registering or declaring a party. This was quite explicit in the law.
This makes absolutely no sense. The reason you chose a party on the ballot was that you were a member of that party. That's why the old system was ruled unconstitutional in the first place - the old blanket primary meant that parties couldn't choose their own members.
Right, which means that you are taking away the right of people to put candidates on the ballot, which is the greatest crime of the whole system. Right now, if I get enough signatures, I can get my candidate -- whoever he is -- in the election. This right of the people is being stolen by I-872.
Your candidate will end up in the primary. Then the people can decide if he'll end up on the ballot. That sounds fair to me.
Me: Parties will have to recruit candidates with broad public support and run campaigns that appeal to all the voters.
You: No, sorry. The only time a Democrat and a Republican won't get on the ballot is when there's a lot more voters who identify with one party over the other and there's two strong candidates of that party, or when there's two strong candidates in both parties (so each would get around 1/4 of the votes).
How is that? I'm a Democrat, but I agree with a lot of the Libertarian platform. I also know a lot of Republicans who also agree with the Libertarians. I would never throw my vote away to a Libertarian in a general election, but in a primary I would since it doesn't decide the final winner. If a Libertarian actually made it to a general election where there were only two candidates, then I would vote for him.
Me:I-872 gives voters more choices in the primary and better choices in the general election.
You:This is the most clear bullshit the grange spouts. The general election is the real election. It's the one most people participate in, and it's
I never claimed the Republicans did not change their argument, and in fact, I explicitly stated the opposite in the story. But you're claiming their arguments changed more than the Democrats when in fact they changed *exactly as much*.
When did the Democrat's argument change?
The problem with a top two primary is that although we get to vote on the person, not the party, each party has a right to be represented in the general election.
Why is this a problem? Isn't voting for the person what we should be doing in the first place?
And if by some weird happening, two Democrats or two Republicans went onto the general election for a given race, I'm a bit curious about campaign money and issues like that.
The campaign money will flow to the candidate with the broadest appeal. Even so, the parties will be forced to adapt.
It is unlikely that two candidates from the same party will make it to the election (see vote splitting below). However, if it does happen, then it will be because the majority of the district is a single party. In the old system, the primary would have decided the ultimate winner and not the election. That is one more reason why the old system is backward and flawed.
Also, for the primary, what prevents vote splitting? Hypothetically speaking, let's say 15 Democrats run for a given race. If we use the plurality system, they may as well have a worse chance at advancing than a total of 3 Republicans running.
If all 15 of those Democrats are equally liked, then we may be screwed. But, what is the probability of that? Someone will have to have some common sense and party loyalty to drop out of the race before the primary.
Too bad for you that I-872 is unconstitutional. A blanket primary was already ruled unconstitutional in CA by the Supreme Court, and the ruling was upheld in WA by a federal circuit court (which is why we got rid of it in the first place).
Although the US Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have ruled that this form of primary is different from the partisan blanket primary previously in use in Washington state and that nonpartisan blanket primaries are not subject to the kind of legal challenge presently being made by the political parties, the major political parties have repeatedly claimed - without foundation - that the kind of qualifying primary proposed in I-872 is unconstitutional. The majority opinion of the U. S. Supreme Court in the CAL DEMO case (in 2000) went out of its way to declare what kind of primary would meet its constitutional test. They said,
"Finally, we may observe that even if all these state interests were compelling ones, Proposition 198 is not a narrowly tailored means of furthering them. Respondents could protect them all by resorting to a nonpartisan blanket primary. Generally speaking, under such a system, the State determines what qualifications it requires for a candidate to have a place on the primary ballot -- which may include nomination by established parties and voter-petition requirements for independent candidates. Each voter, regardless of party affiliation, may then vote for any candidate, and the top two vote getters (or however many the State prescribes) then move on to the general election. This system has all the characteristics of the partisan blanket primary, save the constitutionally crucial one: Primary voters are not choosing a party's nominee. Under a nonpartisan blanket primary, a State may ensure more choice, greater participation, increased "privacy," and a sense of "fairness"--all without severely burdening a political party's First Amendment right of association."
As soon as the governor's thing is finished, I hope the parties set their sights on this despicable law that steals choice and power away from the people. Most people -- like you -- had no idea what I-872 said when they voted for it.
Au contraire, I knew exactly what I was voting for when I voted for this. This law gives more choice to the people. I-872 provides incentive for people to cast ballots for the person they want most in the election, regardless of party affiliation. And I believe it will stop the practise of people voting in the primary for the most extreme candidate of the opposite party just to poison the chances of that party succeeding in the election.
Beyond that, it is incredible to me that anyone thinks we can save Democracy by taking away the right of the people to put candidates on the ballot.
In the old system that was just voted down, people did not put candidates on the ballot. Political parties put candidates on the ballot.
Please do not lie. Every vote is counted now.
Every vote is counted, but not every vote counts, which is what I meant. In this governor's election, the only votes that mattered were votes for either Rossi or Gregoire. The libertarian votes didn't count. The write in votes for Ron Sims didn't count.
Every third party is against I-872, and no one with a clue thinks this will help third parties. On the contrary, it's quite clear that this is the death of third parties.
Under I-872, you will never have to declare party or register by party in order to vote in the primary. The two candidates with the most votes in the primary will win and go on to the general election ballot. No political party is guaranteed a spot on the general election ballot. Parties will have to recruit candidates with broad public support and run campaigns that appeal to all the voters.
I-872 gives voters more choices in the primary and better choices in the general election. All the voters will decide who is on the November ballot, whether it's one Republican and one Democrat, one major and one minor party, or even an Independent. The candidates will be the people the voters want the most, regardless of party affiliation.
The hypocrisy of the Democrats here would be stunning if it weren't so predictable.
The democrats followed the election through the legal steps of the initial count, a machine recount, and then a hand recount.
Rossi was the winner of the first count by 261 votes. After that, the Republicans started asking Gregoire to concede.
Then, Rossi won the machine recount by 42 votes. After that, the Republicans started demanding Gregoire to concede.
Then, Gregoire won the hand recount by 129 votes. After that, the Republican Dino Rossi refused to concede and asked for a do-over.
If any party here is being hypocritical, then it is the Republicans. If Rossi was serious about his claim that the election was hopelessly flawed and that the Legislature should authorize a new election, then he should have made the claim after the machine recount, not after he was declared the loser in the final count.
And it happens to be an overwhelming Democrat County. Interesting.
There is nothing particularly interesting or surprising about this. The fact of the matter is that if Rossi still wants to stay in the race, then he needs to make a compelling argument that will convince either the judiciary or the legislature that fraud occured. And he's hired 500 lawyers to help make his case.
Republicans and Democrats have both monitored the elections, sniffing out any sign of fraud. None has materialized thus far. And the vote was monitored and certified by Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican.
Anyone have any ideas on solutions to make sure this doesn't happen again?
In this election, the vote was open to governor candidates from multiple parties. Write in candidates were also allowed. This made for a good number of votes that weren't even placed for the top two candidates.
The solution to this problem was enacted into Washington state law in this election. I-872 will allow voters to select among all candidates in a primary. Ballots would indicate candidates' party preference. The two candidates receiving most votes advance to the general election, regardless of party.
So, in the general election voters will have only two choices. This will result in every voter's vote being counted.
As a side effect, I think it will also help 3rd party candidates get to the final ballot.
As mentioned in an earlier post, 266 ballots seemed to disappear, while 325 magically materialized. Again, these are not just a matter of reinterpration of marks on paper, these are entire sheets of paper that either vanished or appeared out of thin air. Christine Gregoire added a net 47 new votes to her total, Dino Rossi lost a net 12 from his.
In the first count, Rossi was ahead by 261 votes. In the second count, Rossi ended up ahead by 42 votes. In the final count, Gregoire was ahead by 129 votes. The total number of votes cast were 2.8 million. Anyone see a problem here?
The problem is that we're well within the margin of error. To get an accurate count, we need to be more precise than 0.01%. The fact that a few votes here and there seemed to disappear and reappear are just statistical anomalies. That alone is not proof of fraud.
I thought this was for governor, not a representative
Word on the street is that Rossi could make a run for Maria Cantwell's seat in congress come 2006. He could likely win considering he got 1.5 million votes out of 3 million votes.
Of course, he could likely lose considering Cantwell is considered a good congresswoman while Gregoire is considered incompetent.