I don't have any problem running 10+ apps simultaneously on my Palm Pre. Perhaps some companies besides Apple can do things right! But that's unpossible!
You must have an amazing Palm Pre to not get the "No additional cards can be opened at this time" error message that pops up when I try to get the 7th or 8th card open. The Palm Pre is the best illustration yet for why blind, pre-emptive multitasking in a phone OS is a bad idea.
Sounds like every geeks wet dream. And yet I can't help but think to myself... this is a <i>telephone</i>. This is device whose primary purpose is to facilitate <i>verbal communication</i>.</p></quote>
They only lean toward MAC/IP topologies in BPL. In lower-bandwidth scenarios (metering) they go a variety of ways, largely because extended distances mean signals from a given node won't be visible across the entire network, which forces a repeater mechanism of some kind. It gets complex fairly quickly, especially in commercial systems, where huge banks of fluorescent lights create some unpredictable behavior.
Making things worse are the customers who have heard about BPL and say, "Why can't you just replace all these devices with something that does broadband and greater throughput?"
Actually, the way they do this is using an address layer like most any other protocol. A bunch of different topologies exist, but generally speaking, each monitored node will be uniquely addressable with a value embedded in the data frames rather than just by frequency. Multiple frequencies are used to dynamically adjust to the presence of various types of noise.
Several people here have posited that the Mac ads are effective at communicating the "benefits" of using a Mac, and the "detriments" to using a PC, and most recently, to using Vista. You're suggesting that they've done the opposite.
If you're right, and the ads are NOT largely effective, then I have a couple of questions:
1) Why did Microsoft feel a need to respond to these ads specifically?
and
2) Did the perception of "Vista sucks" come out of nowhere, out of reality, or some other conspiracy against Microsoft, since these ads weren't effective at convincing people that Vista (and not them) was the problem?
Typically, candidate order randomization isn't done within a given precinct, but is a variation from one precinct to another. In areas where it IS done within a precinct, you end up with a multitude of "ballot styles" that each have an identifying code that tells the scanner which style is being scanned, and which OMR (not OCR) spot goes with a given candidate.
Ordering issues are also why getting humans to count ballots correctly has always been an issue. US ballots are complex for a variety of reasons that don't apply in Canada or other countries, and State's rights issues fall into the mix as well, precluding large-scale standardization, other than the testing that has been done by NASED and (more recently) by the EAC.
It's endlessly amusing how often all of these discussions come up in Slashdot, how they rarely touch on the real issues that affect voting in the US, and how amazingly complex situations can be simplified when one wants to look at a problem superficially.
It's like being the guy writing some parser code trying to explain why the project is late to a senior manager. The manager doesn't have a clue what the issues are until he gets down and lives with the problems, so how are you supposed to explain to him why seemingly unrelated issues caused so many problems? - Tim
Don't you realize this is why the USPS is so slow? They're just limiting the bandwidth of your mail. Too much and the truck would break down, so they have to intentionally "drop some of those packets" at the local office. - Tim
In the light of what you wrote above, that makes sense. However in the post I replied to, you wrote:
" For Pentecostal (fundamentalist? not sure which is the subset of which -- essentially all born-again) Christians, it is a logical problem.[snip]
Thus one can't have Jesus as Saviour, and Evolution as a beginning."
My point was that not all "born-again" Christians are going to hold to a literal interpretation, and many (like myself) are going to see the story entirely as allegory. That may not hold for Pentecostals, but that's not what I read in your comment. My bad if I misread.
When I read things in the Bible that seem whacky when lined up against well-understood science, I presume that my interpretation of the Bible is wrong, not that the science is to be thrown out.
"Thus one can't have Jesus as Saviour, and Evolution as a beginning."
This presumes that the Adam as allegory is not describing "the fall" that all persons go through, or some other variation.
If you presume that the story is the story of one's growth from childhood dependence to knowledge and understanding (and the resulting responsibility for the choices that come with independence), it changes the equation quite dramatically. There are other options, but that's just one variation on "Adam & Eden as Allegory." You have assumed (mistakenly) that only one allegorical interpretation is possible.
Note: I'm fully aware that the above interpretation runs contrary to what is generally derived from the Book of Romans. There are logical paths through that as well, but my point was that other interpretations exist.
The effect of the Electoral College is that smaller jurisdictions MUST be considered when campaigning. Otherwise, a candidate would just hit a dozen major metro areas and they'd have the numerical advantage sewed up.
Instead, they have to take into consideration (somewhat) what happens in KY, WY, and MT, even though these states don't have enough numerical population to make a significant diff without the EC.
Elections are one of the most visible embodiments of state's rights. As long as my state doesn't violate federally guaranteed rights, we can make all the weirdo election laws we want, or choose our reps for the EC by flipping a coin. It's up to my state to determine these things, and the other states can't say (or do) squat about it. - Tim
You're probably not aware of this, but one of the early prototypes of an accessible voting system told the user (via audio), "Press the Red button to select this candidate. Press the green button to hear the next candidate."
With that kind of history from some of the vendors (that was not an ES&S product), it's easy to see why the legislation would get nit-picky.
That is, as long as you're not physically unable to mark a piece of paper by yourself.
For all its faults (and there are many), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) came about because people who are blind or physically unable to mark a ballot had no way of voting independently and privately. To that end, their civil rights were not being addressed by the individual states, and the resulting legislation forced the states to come into compliance (well, everyone except New York).
Prior to the DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) variants, we did all manner of technology things to try to eliminate the nefarious things that various groups would do to unfairly influence elections. Lever machines, scantron/marksense systems, and so on, were all attempts to get the "personal touch" that was so frequently applied, removed from the process. Lever machines seem to have had the best reputation, but even those were susceptible to tampering, in subtle (and frequently invisible) ways.
Another issue in the US is the complex nature of voting rights. Voting laws and regulations are the province of each state, even when it comes to selecting the Electoral College representation for Presidential elections. For example, KY (where I live) could decide to choose its electors by flipping a coin, and our friends in IN or TN couldn't do a dang thing about it. As long as the states don't do anything that biases the process in favor of one particular group over another (such as male/female, white/non-white, non-disabled/disabled), the feds have no say in the matter.
Lastly, you have the issue of US geography. There are many places in the US that are incredibly rural, where outsiders are simply unwelcome. Smart people, even federal agents, go into the hills of Eastern KY with caution, because they know that going in and throwing their weight around so carries a fair amount of risk. I know a former FBI agent who NEVER traveled into Eastern KY alone for just this reason. I would expect that each state has areas like that, where outside review of voting practices or oversight will not be received gladly. In those areas, the states are always looking for ways to get family/regional influence out of the process, because bipartisan oversight is so incredibly laughable.
Like most issues on Slashdot, this is a lot more complicated than the average person (especially those outside the US, or with little familiarity with the US version of representative democracy) realizes. While I see no reason to cut ES&S any slack on this matter, I can sympathize with the difficulty of navigating the plethora of regulations and laws that such a company is subject to, should they choose to sell to more than one state in the US.
This is EXACTLY why people who aren't US citizens don't understand/appreciate the complexity of what goes on here, and why finding a "best" answer is so difficult.
Of course, adding to this is the issue that voting law is the realm of the states, and not the federal gov't (unless someone's civil rights are infringed upon), but that is as poorly understood as the relationship between the states and the Electoral College.
Regardless of how you or I feel about support for multi-language, in most states the law stipulates a percentage of registered voters that require the state to support a given language. For example, in NY, depending on the town, you may have to support up to eight languages. In complex districts (that is, lots of school/town/county lines cris-crossing), it's a huge expenditure.
Even small states with English-only ballots spend (typically) seven figures just on ballot printing for various federal, state, and municipal elections. In larger states, getting the paper printed in the necessary languages, with all the correct names and wording checked and printed properly (and done on very short notice), is a logistical nightmare.
As for large print, consider NY, where the "full face" law requires you to present the entire ballot in such a way that you can see the whole thing at a glance. To do so in LARGE PRINT would require (for some of the NY ballots I've seen) poster board. Literally.
With that said, I'm a firm believer in paper, but would like to see the US make some changes in the way we typically generate that paper. What I'm not pushing for is mandatory hand-counting of that paper. I would prefer to see machine counting as an option for any locale that wants to use it, for whatever reason.
Slashdot Mirror
That was rather my point. Has Apple charged for ANY of the iPod Touch updates? If they have, I'm not aware of it.
I don't have any problem running 10+ apps simultaneously on my Palm Pre. Perhaps some companies besides Apple can do things right! But that's unpossible!
You must have an amazing Palm Pre to not get the "No additional cards can be opened at this time" error message that pops up when I try to get the 7th or 8th card open. The Palm Pre is the best illustration yet for why blind, pre-emptive multitasking in a phone OS is a bad idea.
They are. Major software upgrades for the iPad are probably not going to be free (except maybe the first one).
Exactly like they did for all the iPhone updates that have worked on all the original iPhones.
Unlike me, who can't even edit the quote tags correctly. - Tim
Sounds like every geeks wet dream. And yet I can't help but think to myself ... this is a <i>telephone</i>. This is device whose primary purpose is to facilitate <i>verbal communication</i>.</p></quote>
You must be new here. - Tim
They only lean toward MAC/IP topologies in BPL. In lower-bandwidth scenarios (metering) they go a variety of ways, largely because extended distances mean signals from a given node won't be visible across the entire network, which forces a repeater mechanism of some kind. It gets complex fairly quickly, especially in commercial systems, where huge banks of fluorescent lights create some unpredictable behavior.
Making things worse are the customers who have heard about BPL and say, "Why can't you just replace all these devices with something that does broadband and greater throughput?"
Actually, the way they do this is using an address layer like most any other protocol. A bunch of different topologies exist, but generally speaking, each monitored node will be uniquely addressable with a value embedded in the data frames rather than just by frequency. Multiple frequencies are used to dynamically adjust to the presence of various types of noise.
How about a jar full of mosquitoes instead? - Tim
People said the same thing when they launched the Zune. Go figure. - Tim
Another freebie:
PC [Hodgman] sitting in his king chair, surrounded by windows that have no apparent walls holding them up. Mac [Long] walks up.
Mac: What's up PC?
PC: Enjoying life without walls. I'm still the king, and all my subjects are PCs.
(Strangers come up behind PC, carry off some of his stuff)
PC: Hey! These guys are stealing all my stuff! (disgustedly sitting back down) Maybe going without walls was a bad idea.
Mac: Could be, but I have to ask. If you don't want walls, why do you have Windows?
PC: (long pause) I banish you... again.
Several people here have posited that the Mac ads are effective at communicating the "benefits" of using a Mac, and the "detriments" to using a PC, and most recently, to using Vista. You're suggesting that they've done the opposite.
If you're right, and the ads are NOT largely effective, then I have a couple of questions:
1) Why did Microsoft feel a need to respond to these ads specifically?
and
2) Did the perception of "Vista sucks" come out of nowhere, out of reality, or some other conspiracy against Microsoft, since these ads weren't effective at convincing people that Vista (and not them) was the problem?
Clearly, I'm missing something.
So what you're saying is that the Seinfeld ads were purposefully bad so that these would look good? NOW those ads make sense!
Typically, candidate order randomization isn't done within a given precinct, but is a variation from one precinct to another. In areas where it IS done within a precinct, you end up with a multitude of "ballot styles" that each have an identifying code that tells the scanner which style is being scanned, and which OMR (not OCR) spot goes with a given candidate.
Ordering issues are also why getting humans to count ballots correctly has always been an issue. US ballots are complex for a variety of reasons that don't apply in Canada or other countries, and State's rights issues fall into the mix as well, precluding large-scale standardization, other than the testing that has been done by NASED and (more recently) by the EAC.
It's endlessly amusing how often all of these discussions come up in Slashdot, how they rarely touch on the real issues that affect voting in the US, and how amazingly complex situations can be simplified when one wants to look at a problem superficially.
It's like being the guy writing some parser code trying to explain why the project is late to a senior manager. The manager doesn't have a clue what the issues are until he gets down and lives with the problems, so how are you supposed to explain to him why seemingly unrelated issues caused so many problems? - Tim
Apparently, you haven't seen the pictures on the Internet that I've seen...
My experience has been that they are not nearly as absorbent.
Don't you realize this is why the USPS is so slow? They're just limiting the bandwidth of your mail. Too much and the truck would break down, so they have to intentionally "drop some of those packets" at the local office. - Tim
In the light of what you wrote above, that makes sense. However in the post I replied to, you wrote:
" For Pentecostal (fundamentalist? not sure which is the subset of which -- essentially all born-again) Christians, it is a logical problem.[snip]
Thus one can't have Jesus as Saviour, and Evolution as a beginning."
My point was that not all "born-again" Christians are going to hold to a literal interpretation, and many (like myself) are going to see the story entirely as allegory. That may not hold for Pentecostals, but that's not what I read in your comment. My bad if I misread.
When I read things in the Bible that seem whacky when lined up against well-understood science, I presume that my interpretation of the Bible is wrong, not that the science is to be thrown out.
Cheers,
Tim
"Thus one can't have Jesus as Saviour, and Evolution as a beginning."
This presumes that the Adam as allegory is not describing "the fall" that all persons go through, or some other variation.
If you presume that the story is the story of one's growth from childhood dependence to knowledge and understanding (and the resulting responsibility for the choices that come with independence), it changes the equation quite dramatically. There are other options, but that's just one variation on "Adam & Eden as Allegory." You have assumed (mistakenly) that only one allegorical interpretation is possible.
Note: I'm fully aware that the above interpretation runs contrary to what is generally derived from the Book of Romans. There are logical paths through that as well, but my point was that other interpretations exist.
Tim
The effect of the Electoral College is that smaller jurisdictions MUST be considered when campaigning. Otherwise, a candidate would just hit a dozen major metro areas and they'd have the numerical advantage sewed up.
Instead, they have to take into consideration (somewhat) what happens in KY, WY, and MT, even though these states don't have enough numerical population to make a significant diff without the EC.
Elections are one of the most visible embodiments of state's rights. As long as my state doesn't violate federally guaranteed rights, we can make all the weirdo election laws we want, or choose our reps for the EC by flipping a coin. It's up to my state to determine these things, and the other states can't say (or do) squat about it. - Tim
Yup... I would use those Google apps more if Google could figure out "the reliability of always being up."
Oh wait...
"secure windows box"
I believe your post may be the first to ever juxtapose these words on Slashdot.
Tim
You're probably not aware of this, but one of the early prototypes of an accessible voting system told the user (via audio), "Press the Red button to select this candidate. Press the green button to hear the next candidate."
With that kind of history from some of the vendors (that was not an ES&S product), it's easy to see why the legislation would get nit-picky.
Tim
That is, as long as you're not physically unable to mark a piece of paper by yourself.
For all its faults (and there are many), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) came about because people who are blind or physically unable to mark a ballot had no way of voting independently and privately. To that end, their civil rights were not being addressed by the individual states, and the resulting legislation forced the states to come into compliance (well, everyone except New York).
Prior to the DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) variants, we did all manner of technology things to try to eliminate the nefarious things that various groups would do to unfairly influence elections. Lever machines, scantron/marksense systems, and so on, were all attempts to get the "personal touch" that was so frequently applied, removed from the process. Lever machines seem to have had the best reputation, but even those were susceptible to tampering, in subtle (and frequently invisible) ways.
Another issue in the US is the complex nature of voting rights. Voting laws and regulations are the province of each state, even when it comes to selecting the Electoral College representation for Presidential elections. For example, KY (where I live) could decide to choose its electors by flipping a coin, and our friends in IN or TN couldn't do a dang thing about it. As long as the states don't do anything that biases the process in favor of one particular group over another (such as male/female, white/non-white, non-disabled/disabled), the feds have no say in the matter.
Lastly, you have the issue of US geography. There are many places in the US that are incredibly rural, where outsiders are simply unwelcome. Smart people, even federal agents, go into the hills of Eastern KY with caution, because they know that going in and throwing their weight around so carries a fair amount of risk. I know a former FBI agent who NEVER traveled into Eastern KY alone for just this reason. I would expect that each state has areas like that, where outside review of voting practices or oversight will not be received gladly. In those areas, the states are always looking for ways to get family/regional influence out of the process, because bipartisan oversight is so incredibly laughable.
Like most issues on Slashdot, this is a lot more complicated than the average person (especially those outside the US, or with little familiarity with the US version of representative democracy) realizes. While I see no reason to cut ES&S any slack on this matter, I can sympathize with the difficulty of navigating the plethora of regulations and laws that such a company is subject to, should they choose to sell to more than one state in the US.
Tim
This is EXACTLY why people who aren't US citizens don't understand/appreciate the complexity of what goes on here, and why finding a "best" answer is so difficult.
Of course, adding to this is the issue that voting law is the realm of the states, and not the federal gov't (unless someone's civil rights are infringed upon), but that is as poorly understood as the relationship between the states and the Electoral College.
Cheers,
Tim
Regardless of how you or I feel about support for multi-language, in most states the law stipulates a percentage of registered voters that require the state to support a given language. For example, in NY, depending on the town, you may have to support up to eight languages. In complex districts (that is, lots of school/town/county lines cris-crossing), it's a huge expenditure.
Even small states with English-only ballots spend (typically) seven figures just on ballot printing for various federal, state, and municipal elections. In larger states, getting the paper printed in the necessary languages, with all the correct names and wording checked and printed properly (and done on very short notice), is a logistical nightmare.
As for large print, consider NY, where the "full face" law requires you to present the entire ballot in such a way that you can see the whole thing at a glance. To do so in LARGE PRINT would require (for some of the NY ballots I've seen) poster board. Literally.
With that said, I'm a firm believer in paper, but would like to see the US make some changes in the way we typically generate that paper. What I'm not pushing for is mandatory hand-counting of that paper. I would prefer to see machine counting as an option for any locale that wants to use it, for whatever reason.
Tim