While North Carolina doesn't allow you to cast ballots via email (which is inherently retarded), we are allowed to use email to request absentee ballots.
That is, until this year. They changed the law so now I have to send them a HANDWRITTEN letter requesting an absentee ballot. Why?
North Carolina seems to have the best ballots in all of America. Next to each candidates name, is an arrow (looks like the 'one way' signs.) The arrow is broken in the middle. If you wish to vote for that candidate, you connect the 2 halves.
Before John Doe <----- ---- After: John Doe <----==----
Absentee ballots are the same as the regular ones. When you vote on election day, it feeds all the ballots into an optical reader. There, done, recounts are as easy as pie.
Microsoft, and in particular Bill Gates, have stated numerous times that Longhorn is the most expensive and time intensive project MS has embarked on and would be as complicated as the Apollo space program.
Would you want to fly into space on a shuttle that runs Windows?
"Uhhh Houston, what the hell is a pagefault in kernel32.386?"
Over the past few months, I have been evaluating purchasing and subscribing to a satellite radio service. I have been weighing pros and cons of both yours and the Sirrius service. I mostly came up with even hands. However, your recent disappointing legal actions against Scott MacLean have helped me make my final decision. I will not be purchasing or subscribing to any XM satellite radio service, and I will encourage my friends and neighbors to avoid your service as well.
The internet is not based on the idea of local laws or community standards (or even national laws)... it is an un-stoppable device that cannot be limited.
Take China... for every site they block, another one pops up. Just because you pass laws saying people can't be Nazi's doesn't mean they go away... it just means they go underground. Personally, I'd rather know who is in the KKK or a member of the Nazi party.
Personally, I find it incredible that they allowed Kennedy to fly after a supervisor 'recognized' him. You mean to tell me there aren't any bloated-faced white-haired guys who can fake a Boston accent that don't look like Kennedy?
Late Night Talk show hosts have impersonators and look-alikes of celebrities on their shows all the times. And if the screener had any doubt that they were actually dealing with... say, the real Charlie Sheen, he could just claim he was having a bad hair day, belt out a few lines from Ferris Bueller, and no one would doubt him.
Be careful what you wish for. Microsoft (which I don't believe has filed any patent infringement lawsuits to date) and IBM own patents on.. well, everything. To force them to file suits against everyone would certainly get rid of a lot of errneous patents, but it would hurt everyone in the short-term.
I don't think thats necessarily true. If they were all forced to actually defend their patents, nothing would change. Microsoft is not going to sue IBM over it's patents just like IBM isn't going to sue Microsoft. As a result, the patents go away. I strongly support making patent enforcement mandatory. This idea that you can sit on patents until someone else is making millions on the same idea and then pounce on them is ridiculous. Use it or lose it.
Genius.... Targetting Republican websites... someone want to tell these hackers that it's the Republicans that have been pushing mandatory sentencing guidelines in federal, pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Not to nitpick, but I think it should be illegal to use 6 point fixed-css-based font sizes. Dear lord, I'm still in the 18-24 age bracket and I could barely make out the text, and that's on a 19 inch monitor at 1024x768.
Ford = Mercury = Lincoln
Chevy = GM
Chrysler = Dodge
Honda = Acura
Toyota = Lexus = Scion
Volkswagen = Audi = Porsche
The automobile family tree runs back over itself in so many different ways. Ford owns part of Mazda, and they both produce an identical SUV... with different name badging.
I bought a DRU-500a almost immediately after it came out. (It was the first DVD burner that supported both the + and - standards.) If I remember correctly, it was 300 dollars. Anyway, I got it home, put it in, and:
1. Read CD's fine
2. Read DVD's fine
3. Burned to the included DVD+RW just fine
4. Burned + discs
5. Burned - discs
I decided, saright, it works. Just long enough later to be out of store warrenty, I get around to burning a new mix CD. Hmmm, that's odd, the first track won't play. Further research showed that it would play just fine in my computer, but not on ANY standalone unit. However, the track was there, if I used a standalone unit, started on track 2, and manually rewound to track one, it would play just fine.
So I called sony and explained the problem in details, indicating that I figured it was burning a few sectors earlier than it probably should have, and that standalone units, which don't have all the error correction my computer does... couldn't handle the missing data.
Oh god. First, they wouldn't help me at all because I didn't have installed their piece of shit OEM burning software. After going back and forth on the phone, they gave me an RMA. So I shipped it out to Arizona, $10.
They said I should have it back in 2 - 4 weeks. 2 weeks later, I called to see what the status was. The response, "We couldn't find a problem with your drive and shipped it back to you yesterday." Well thanks alot.
After recieving the drive back, and the problem continuing, I called again, went through the same shpeil, and continued to get nowhere. Eventually the tech told me that the drive was performing as designed so long as discs would play in the unit itself. Half the techs I talked to flat out refused to believe me. They kept asking if I was using 'Sony, TDK, or Kodak' brand cds. Now, I didn't know that Kodak even made cd's, and so I asked where, in their documentation, did it say that I needed to use those 3 brands. The tech responded that it wasn't in the documentation, but if you were having a problem, that they recommended those.
They were completely unhelpful, would not just, send me a new unit as I repeatedly requested (being that I could not encounter ANY other stories online documenting this, I came to the conclusion that the unit was defective), and were consistently rude to me. They said the only way I could get the unit replaced was if I shipped it to Arizona and they decided something was wrong with it. Since they had decided it was fine previously, I figured that that was rather pointless.
To make a long story short, about 2 months later, a new revision of the drive firmware showed up on sony.com; listed in the revisions was, 'improve playback on standalone players.'
Installing the new firmware solved the problem.
Well I'll be damned. They knew this problem existed. If they had told me that it was a problem and that they were working on it but didn't have a fix at the moment, I would have been fine. Instead they gave me the runaround constantly.
This, coupled with 2 identical VCR's from Sony that failed in identical ways, has turned me off to Sony, forever.
Just as a note for the curious, Sony owns Aiwa, so don't buy from them either.
*My father had it done 2 years ago after a friend of the family raved about it. My fathers prescription prior to the surgury was something like -6 in both eyes with a -3 or -4 stigmatism. Growing up he was the kid with cokebottle lenses. He paid approximately 3 grand for the surgury. That's my first point,
1. Go with someone reputable, and pay for someone reputable. Don't go with some bottom barrel eye surgury place.
2. Be prepared. Most people only have to have the laser on their eye for 5-7 seconds... my father, with his extreme prescription and stigmatism, had to stare at the laser for 17 seconds with one eye. That's a long time, especially when, in his own words, you can smell your eye burning.
3. Have I mentioned going with someone reputable? Due to his extreme prescription, he had to go back twice to have it corrected. A bottom barrel place isn't going to do that, especially at no extra charge.
4. Don't expect perfect. Again, the doctor told my father that 20/40 would be great for him. He got lucky and has 20/20 vision now. In both eyes.
5. It's a long recovery. While he could see immediately after having the surgury done; there was a multiple week process of sleeping in certain positions and applying eye drops regularly. Also, as stated by others in this discussion, your night vision will be impaired. The family friend said it took about a year for the tracers from headlights to go completely away during nightime driving.
6. Studies have shown it accelerates your need for reading glasses. Following the surgury, my father had to wear reading glasses for a few months to read anything close up. The doctor told him this was expected. This diminished over time. My father is in his late 40's, so the concern over needing reading glasses sooner was a moot point, and it was also something that didn't bother him. Even if you read alot, distance vision is used far, far more often... just the thought of not having to clean my lenses off when it rains or being able to see the alarm clock in the morning is incredible.
All in all, I say go for it. If you have the cash, I think it's a worthwhile investment, but find someone reputable... someone that someone else you know has gone with, and do your research! There is the possibility for something to go wrong, just like there is in any surgury, so you want the odds of this happening to be as low as possible.
My father still squints to see the alarm clock. Not because he can't see it, just because he had to for 40 years. Old habits die hard.
I also helm from North Carolina. In the past, when I have recieved responses from John Edwards, they are always canned, form letter responses. Edwards's staff also seems to take their time sending them.
In all of the emails I've sent to Libby Dole, I have never gotten a response, although once, I got a physical letter (in response to my email), that said that I would soon recieve an actual response to my inquiry (wtf?)
My congressman, David Price, is fantastic about responding to things. I doubt he writes all the letters himself, but I've always gotten detailed responses to all letters I've written, even when they were about mundane obscure amendments to bills. I'm very impressed with Price, overall.
I am essentially in the same situation as you. I go by my middle name and sign all documents 'F. Middle' It's never been a problem for me, and, in fact, when telemarketers call, it's easy to weed them out, as they always ask for someone who goes by my first name.
Sorry, he doesn't live here...
I sympathize with your plight to have things listed the way you want 'F. Middle' rather than 'First M.' I have all sorts of things that list my middle name as my first name... never encountered a problem though. Perhaps I should be concerned...
Personally, I'd almost rather teach my children self defense and how to handle unknowns in the world, than to rely on a removable tracking tag for their "safety". They'll be better off for knowing that.
Thank you, my friend, for bringing personal responsibility into this debate. All things like these RFID tags do are create a false sense of security.
This argument is such a fallacy. Why don't we encase our children in 'Nerf'? After all, then they would just bounce off of cars when they run out in the street.
Slashdot Mirror
While North Carolina doesn't allow you to cast ballots via email (which is inherently retarded), we are allowed to use email to request absentee ballots.
That is, until this year. They changed the law so now I have to send them a HANDWRITTEN letter requesting an absentee ballot. Why?
North Carolina seems to have the best ballots in all of America. Next to each candidates name, is an arrow (looks like the 'one way' signs.) The arrow is broken in the middle. If you wish to vote for that candidate, you connect the 2 halves.
Before
John Doe <----- ----
After:
John Doe <----==----
Absentee ballots are the same as the regular ones. When you vote on election day, it feeds all the ballots into an optical reader. There, done, recounts are as easy as pie.
Yea, I love supposedly 'password protected' XP/2000 user login directories are wide open for the viewing in linux. Thanks knoppix!
Microsoft, and in particular Bill Gates, have stated numerous times that Longhorn is the most expensive and time intensive project MS has embarked on and would be as complicated as the Apollo space program.
Would you want to fly into space on a shuttle that runs Windows?
"Uhhh Houston, what the hell is a pagefault in kernel32.386?"
This can only be a good thing. For anyone who hasn't used KDE's search feature... it's really, really slow.
I eagerly await this update.
Dear XM,
Over the past few months, I have been evaluating purchasing and subscribing to a satellite radio service. I have been weighing pros and cons of both yours and the Sirrius service. I mostly came up with even hands. However, your recent disappointing legal actions against Scott MacLean have helped me make my final decision. I will not be purchasing or subscribing to any XM satellite radio service, and I will encourage my friends and neighbors to avoid your service as well.
Thanks for your help,
Jeff
The internet is not based on the idea of local laws or community standards (or even national laws)... it is an un-stoppable device that cannot be limited.
Take China... for every site they block, another one pops up. Just because you pass laws saying people can't be Nazi's doesn't mean they go away... it just means they go underground. Personally, I'd rather know who is in the KKK or a member of the Nazi party.
I hate Illinois Nazis.
Personally, I find it incredible that they allowed Kennedy to fly after a supervisor 'recognized' him. You mean to tell me there aren't any bloated-faced white-haired guys who can fake a Boston accent that don't look like Kennedy?
Late Night Talk show hosts have impersonators and look-alikes of celebrities on their shows all the times. And if the screener had any doubt that they were actually dealing with... say, the real Charlie Sheen, he could just claim he was having a bad hair day, belt out a few lines from Ferris Bueller, and no one would doubt him.
Be careful what you wish for. Microsoft (which I don't believe has filed any patent infringement lawsuits to date) and IBM own patents on.. well, everything. To force them to file suits against everyone would certainly get rid of a lot of errneous patents, but it would hurt everyone in the short-term.
I don't think thats necessarily true. If they were all forced to actually defend their patents, nothing would change. Microsoft is not going to sue IBM over it's patents just like IBM isn't going to sue Microsoft. As a result, the patents go away. I strongly support making patent enforcement mandatory. This idea that you can sit on patents until someone else is making millions on the same idea and then pounce on them is ridiculous. Use it or lose it.
Hey, wait a second, I thought we only liked Microsoft on odd Tuesdays.
Genius.... Targetting Republican websites... someone want to tell these hackers that it's the Republicans that have been pushing mandatory sentencing guidelines in federal, pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Comparing this kid to Mitnick is like comparing Burt Ward to Bruce Lee.
Context: Burt Ward portrayed Robin on the 1960's Batman series featuring Adam West.
Mad props on the somewhat obscure reference!
Not to nitpick, but I think it should be illegal to use 6 point fixed-css-based font sizes. Dear lord, I'm still in the 18-24 age bracket and I could barely make out the text, and that's on a 19 inch monitor at 1024x768.
This is no different than the automobile industry
Ford = Mercury = Lincoln
Chevy = GM
Chrysler = Dodge
Honda = Acura
Toyota = Lexus = Scion
Volkswagen = Audi = Porsche
The automobile family tree runs back over itself in so many different ways. Ford owns part of Mazda, and they both produce an identical SUV... with different name badging.
I bought a DRU-500a almost immediately after it came out. (It was the first DVD burner that supported both the + and - standards.) If I remember correctly, it was 300 dollars. Anyway, I got it home, put it in, and:
1. Read CD's fine
2. Read DVD's fine
3. Burned to the included DVD+RW just fine
4. Burned + discs
5. Burned - discs
I decided, saright, it works. Just long enough later to be out of store warrenty, I get around to burning a new mix CD. Hmmm, that's odd, the first track won't play. Further research showed that it would play just fine in my computer, but not on ANY standalone unit. However, the track was there, if I used a standalone unit, started on track 2, and manually rewound to track one, it would play just fine.
So I called sony and explained the problem in details, indicating that I figured it was burning a few sectors earlier than it probably should have, and that standalone units, which don't have all the error correction my computer does... couldn't handle the missing data.
Oh god. First, they wouldn't help me at all because I didn't have installed their piece of shit OEM burning software. After going back and forth on the phone, they gave me an RMA. So I shipped it out to Arizona, $10.
They said I should have it back in 2 - 4 weeks. 2 weeks later, I called to see what the status was. The response, "We couldn't find a problem with your drive and shipped it back to you yesterday." Well thanks alot.
After recieving the drive back, and the problem continuing, I called again, went through the same shpeil, and continued to get nowhere. Eventually the tech told me that the drive was performing as designed so long as discs would play in the unit itself. Half the techs I talked to flat out refused to believe me. They kept asking if I was using 'Sony, TDK, or Kodak' brand cds. Now, I didn't know that Kodak even made cd's, and so I asked where, in their documentation, did it say that I needed to use those 3 brands. The tech responded that it wasn't in the documentation, but if you were having a problem, that they recommended those.
They were completely unhelpful, would not just, send me a new unit as I repeatedly requested (being that I could not encounter ANY other stories online documenting this, I came to the conclusion that the unit was defective), and were consistently rude to me. They said the only way I could get the unit replaced was if I shipped it to Arizona and they decided something was wrong with it. Since they had decided it was fine previously, I figured that that was rather pointless.
To make a long story short, about 2 months later, a new revision of the drive firmware showed up on sony.com; listed in the revisions was, 'improve playback on standalone players.'
Installing the new firmware solved the problem.
Well I'll be damned. They knew this problem existed. If they had told me that it was a problem and that they were working on it but didn't have a fix at the moment, I would have been fine. Instead they gave me the runaround constantly.
This, coupled with 2 identical VCR's from Sony that failed in identical ways, has turned me off to Sony, forever.
Just as a note for the curious, Sony owns Aiwa, so don't buy from them either.
I say Go For it!*
*My father had it done 2 years ago after a friend of the family raved about it. My fathers prescription prior to the surgury was something like -6 in both eyes with a -3 or -4 stigmatism. Growing up he was the kid with cokebottle lenses. He paid approximately 3 grand for the surgury. That's my first point,
1. Go with someone reputable, and pay for someone reputable. Don't go with some bottom barrel eye surgury place.
2. Be prepared. Most people only have to have the laser on their eye for 5-7 seconds... my father, with his extreme prescription and stigmatism, had to stare at the laser for 17 seconds with one eye. That's a long time, especially when, in his own words, you can smell your eye burning.
3. Have I mentioned going with someone reputable? Due to his extreme prescription, he had to go back twice to have it corrected. A bottom barrel place isn't going to do that, especially at no extra charge.
4. Don't expect perfect. Again, the doctor told my father that 20/40 would be great for him. He got lucky and has 20/20 vision now. In both eyes.
5. It's a long recovery. While he could see immediately after having the surgury done; there was a multiple week process of sleeping in certain positions and applying eye drops regularly. Also, as stated by others in this discussion, your night vision will be impaired. The family friend said it took about a year for the tracers from headlights to go completely away during nightime driving.
6. Studies have shown it accelerates your need for reading glasses. Following the surgury, my father had to wear reading glasses for a few months to read anything close up. The doctor told him this was expected. This diminished over time. My father is in his late 40's, so the concern over needing reading glasses sooner was a moot point, and it was also something that didn't bother him. Even if you read alot, distance vision is used far, far more often... just the thought of not having to clean my lenses off when it rains or being able to see the alarm clock in the morning is incredible.
All in all, I say go for it. If you have the cash, I think it's a worthwhile investment, but find someone reputable... someone that someone else you know has gone with, and do your research! There is the possibility for something to go wrong, just like there is in any surgury, so you want the odds of this happening to be as low as possible.
My father still squints to see the alarm clock. Not because he can't see it, just because he had to for 40 years. Old habits die hard.
I also helm from North Carolina. In the past, when I have recieved responses from John Edwards, they are always canned, form letter responses. Edwards's staff also seems to take their time sending them.
In all of the emails I've sent to Libby Dole, I have never gotten a response, although once, I got a physical letter (in response to my email), that said that I would soon recieve an actual response to my inquiry (wtf?)
My congressman, David Price, is fantastic about responding to things. I doubt he writes all the letters himself, but I've always gotten detailed responses to all letters I've written, even when they were about mundane obscure amendments to bills. I'm very impressed with Price, overall.
This makes me rather glad that I didn't sign up for their "local and long distance" plan that 'my friend' Jeanine at AT&T offered me last night.
I am essentially in the same situation as you. I go by my middle name and sign all documents 'F. Middle' It's never been a problem for me, and, in fact, when telemarketers call, it's easy to weed them out, as they always ask for someone who goes by my first name.
Sorry, he doesn't live here...
I sympathize with your plight to have things listed the way you want 'F. Middle' rather than 'First M.' I have all sorts of things that list my middle name as my first name... never encountered a problem though. Perhaps I should be concerned...
Personally, I'd almost rather teach my children self defense and how to handle unknowns in the world, than to rely on a removable tracking tag for their "safety". They'll be better off for knowing that.
Thank you, my friend, for bringing personal responsibility into this debate. All things like these RFID tags do are create a false sense of security.
.. if it saves one kid, then it's worth it...
This argument is such a fallacy. Why don't we encase our children in 'Nerf'? After all, then they would just bounce off of cars when they run out in the street.
If it saved one child, it's worth it right?
Will this work out of the box with the Linksys WMP54G 802.11G wireless card? Or will I still have to fsck around with ndiswrapper?
Anyone?
Searching on clerk.house.gov, I located the Roll call vote for the amendment.
See how your representative stood: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2004/roll339.xml
PNG files are not a better format. The folks that created it shot themselves in the foot by ignoring the primary reason to use a GIF file. Animation.
You can't make animations with PNG files....
If it has a video out, it will have Macrovision enabled to stop you recording a decent copy.
Ahhhhh! Curse You Macrovision!!! Your almighty copy protection cannot be stripped out by anyone! Arrrrrgggghhhh!!