...but nothing in life is fair anyway. Obama was mentioned 20% more than McCain (946/786) overall. June 4th to Election Day it's even tighter at 7% (626/584), and as far as cover stories, 17% more (176+41 vs 144+41).
Considering that 1) he was somewhat unknown, and 2) not the same old white guy that we've always had, I can see why he was featured more. Besides, we've known McCain's stances and basic principles since his run in 2000 at least, so we actually needed to hear a bit from the other candidate.
There are potential problems in computer-assisted voting systems too, especially touch screen systems, when the input sensors aren't calibrated right. We've already seen a lot of that with current touch screen systems where the vote tallies as being for the wrong candidate, and probably out of calibration errors.
We use optical scan ballots here, and other than there being some news stories of IDIOTS who can't friggin' connect two lines with a pen, they seem to be working well.
I could see how computer-assisted voting might work, if you start with ready-to-use, human-readable ballot scan sheets and have the terminal print the information on the sheet in the same manner that a human would fill out the form, such that the human who votes can take his ballot and review it. If you can't do that, though, a simple pen and paper system with optical scan makes a lot more sense.
I partly don't understand how Diebold could fail so badly at making voting machines unless they're actively trying to fail this badly, based on the performanace of their ATMs...
I've actually wondered, since all of the, "get payloads into orbit," and, "get payloads shot into space," development has already been done, how hard would it be to actually develop a mission, even in the private sector, to make the journey back and forth? You'd have to carry enough fuel to launch from the surface of Mars, but as Martian gravity is a little more than Earth's, that should be less fuel intensive than launching from Earth anyway. You'd have to carry supplies for keeping the astronauts alive for two or three years depending on how long it takes and how long you stay, but both the Americans and the Russians have experience with space stations that might help make planning that part of the mission easier, and as we've already landed on the Moon and have returned to Lunar orbit to then proceed to leave orbit to return to Earth we already know how to go from orbit to flight.
As I (admittedly not an expert) see it, a voyaging craft would have to be constructed, probably from pieces in orbit, similar to a space station but potentially with a power plant designed for not exclusively solar use, and much heavier on the supplies storage and crew sanity than the current ISS. Tethered or bolted to this craft would be a landing module with quarters for at least a single extended Mars mission, if not something designed to possibly be visited multiple times over the course of many missions. It could even be comprised of both hard pieces and of soft, inflated modules, so that the hard parts are always there for future missions, and that soft, inflatable modules are brought fresh for expanded crew amenities for the duration of each mission, to be used only until the mission concludes. Also, probably bolted in, would have to be a return-to-space craft to launch from the ground up to the still-orbiting voyaging craft, only for the purposes of returning the landing crew back to orbit.
Future missions could use the same voyaging craft and the same ground-based facility, with a new return to orbit craft sent each time, or else the one from the first mission refurbished. It'd probably be cheaper to just build another one rather than to try to build one solidly enough to survive multiple uses, kind of like how the Russians have a Soyuz that is only good for one trip. In fact, a Soyuz or an Apollo-type vehicle might be a good vehicle to use to get from Earth to the orbiting voyaging craft.
One stumbling block that I see, though, would be law and order on such a long mission, as well as human nature like sexuality. We're immature enough as a country that there'd be those who'd vocally oppose mandatory birth control or vasectomes, and unfortunately the government would probably listen to them.
For some reason one of the higher profile high school and college robotics competitions (whose name escapes me) would seem to lead toward this goal, at least as far as the frame and payload of a lander/takeoff vehicle is concerned. Of course, in this they'd have to switch from propellers to rockets, and they'd have to massively scale up both in size and in payload, but if the contest only covers the scope of the mechanics of flight and not the part about keeping occupants alive and comfortable then this could be interesting.
I'd be perversely pleased if some high school club somewhere managed to make a design that passed the tests...
I'd be more worried about hostage situations where people with such a system are held hostage by making their own limbs hold the dead-man switch while the perps get away...
I don't know, since the Florida Bar is using what can be interpreted as the Nuclear Option in his disbarment, it might cause lawyers to consider the ramifications of their Bar certifications if Mr. Thompson as a client goes crazy on them. They might not lose the ability to ever practice law ever again, but they might end up with some form of disbarment like the ten year option.
People might have been calling the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD the next VHS vs. Betamax, but I didn't see it that way.
Laserdisc has been around almost as long as consumer VHS. But, unlike when Disney and others dropped the cost of VHS movies to $20, Laserdisc stayed expensive, often $50 or more per title. Laserdisc remained a premium format, VHS became the common format, and VHS outsold LD in droves.
Fast-forward to 2000 or so, and DVD is the next hot thing. Laserdisc is still being made, but it's almost done. DVD companies use their brains, and realise that if they want to make DVDs replace VHS and not just replace LD that they need to make them cheap. Thus, the price was common originally around $30, then $20, then $16.99, with some titles as low as $5.00 new, on sale. Great! Those who never saw LD and only saw VHS see a significant quality improvement as they get to use most of their 525 scan lines, instead of about half of them, and with the prices being competitive they see no reason to keep buying those old tapes.
Jump to now. DVD is reasonably well established. DVD has replaced VHS like CD replaced cassettes. People know it, they like it. They see how nice it is, and how much it basically looks like regular broadcast TV, or Cable, or Satellite on their analog TVs, and how it looks pretty good on their digital TVs. Many people have amassed large collections of DVDs and the money spent in those purchases is fresh in the minds. Now, Sony wants everyone to buy an expensive player, expensive titles (twice or more the cost of DVDs), and all that they can really claim is that it's better looking. Trouble is, most of us still need analog converter boxes for HDTV, most of us still use composite cable or coax, and even those of us who are videophiles with huge collections don't necessarily see enough benefit to bother with the added expense. We have our consumer format in DVD and by all reaoning it's a great format with good quality. Why should we buy the elite format in Blu-ray when we've got something that already conveys the eye candy, and already has all of the special features, languages, multiple versions, and the like?
Yes, I actually do collect Laserdiscs. I collect DVDs. I don't see how my older projector will make any use of the new format, and as projectors are expensive, HDMI-capable receivers are expensive, HDMI cables in 50' lengths are expensive, and what I have works wonderfully, I don't see any need to upgrade to anything new until something that I already have breaks, and I mean something more than my DVD player chunking out. Even then, I might buy a Blu-ray player if my DVD player breaks, but that would only be for the ability to possibly play blu-ray discs, and as the standards for Blu-ray aren't finalized, I still don't see any advantage to buying a player that might be obsolete by the time I get around to buying titles in its format.
Blu-ray is the next Laserdisc, and the sooner that Sony realises this and markets it accordingly, the better it'll be for them and for the consumer.
Has anyone here both played video games and not killed anyone? Just curious.
I fall into this category... I even played the original Grand Theft Auto with an overhead view, and I regularly still enjoy playing Carmageddon II.
Now, mind you, sometimes I get the impulse to do something violent to someone, but then I load up a violent video game and get it out of my system in a safe manner and I'm good to go.
More importantly, the Federal Government regulates interstate commerce, and this has come up before with catalogs. All that Amazon.com is, truly, is a catalog, and referrers are simply telling one where to go, in that catalog, or giving out catalog item numbers, and out-of-state catalog transactions and the taxes therein are not the responsibility of the seller as the financial transaction is occurring in the seller's state, not in the buyer's.
It seems that once the lawyers took over SCO, it became just a litigation machine and lost whatever technological brainpower it once had. This illustrates why most lawyers should NOT be involved in running companies because their natural orientation is not toward creating products but rather toward, well, practicing law, which usually translates into litigation.
Seems? Seems? That's not just what seemed to happen, that's exactly what happened, and it was intentional. Lawyers figuring that they could make a lot of money found a weak, struggling Linux company, bought rights to other products and a name from another company, and tried to claim infringement specifically looking for a quick settlement from companies like IBM and Novell, and unfortunately for them, the companies that they targetted had invested enough in Linux and had cojones enough that they fought back. Caldera's fall might not have been planned, but the litigation machine was their principal reason for becoming SCO. Unfortunately for SCO, their lawyers and other interested parties weren't nearly smart enough to follow the whole history, legally documented in court and otherwise, to truly establish the origins of code (BSD vs System V, vs OS/2, or others, or original work), and decided willy-nilly because of lines like #include that they had a case...
In a perfect world they'd find McBride in contempt of court and throw him in jail, or they'd find him legally incompetent and insane and would have him committed to a wonderful place with padded walls where he'd be perfectly allowed to ramble on and on about whatever he thinks is true, but in reality they'll probably just strike his testimony from the record.
Twitter is a major site, even if you yourself have never heard of it, with many tens of thousands of users. As such it is felt by many to by *the* flagship RoR application. Unfortunately it has suffered from numerous outages, some of these lasting days at a time.
This still explains NOTHING to me. I hear the words coming out of your mouth, and they sound like English, but the order that they're in doesn't make any friggin' sense...
Now I know how my parents felt when I tried to tell them to buy me a 3dFX Voodoo Rush video card for the AGP bus, but it had to be the Hercules-branded one with 8MB RAM on it...
I doubt Sony expect you to. However, once you have a BD player, are you going to buy a DVD or a BD of the latest movie. I'd hazard a guess that most folk would opt for the new technology.
In all seriousness, my laptop, my wife's laptop, my PC, my wife's PC, the PVR in the entertainment center, and the cheap portable DVD players that we're considering getting for my wife and for her parents all use DVDs, not Blu-Ray. EVEN IF the desktop PCs become cheap to upgrade to Blu-ray I'd have to buy at least two readers and a burner, and I'd still have to buy laptop drives and install them, and I'm not aware of any reasonably-priced ($100) Blu-ray portable player.
I'm still converting Laserdisc, SVHS, and VHS (thanks to COX Cable for removing Turner Classic Movies from analog cable) into a format that will at least play on the laptops if not be burnt back to DVD, and I'm not going to add even more optical players to my already electrical-straining entertainment system until I'm truly convinced that I should bother.
In my opinion, the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD was a red herring anyway. Like with Betamax, Sony still has to compete with another less expensive, consumer friendly format, and their only advantage this time is that their device can play regular DVDs. Rather than a format elimination, I suspect that Blu-ray will be to Laserdisc as DVD is to VHS; the videophiles will spend the money for better quality (or the perception of it based on the sum of equipment in their racks), while the regular consumer will go, "Oh! Look! Spaceballs is five bucks in the bargain bin!", or, "That promotional price for The Bourne Ultimatum at fifteen ninety-nine is a steal!" (with the unsaid, "Compared to $30 for Blu-ray.") and the technology might be adopted, but again, not nearly as widespread as a cheap, good, established format.
...more to the "audiophile" jackasses who really believe that kind of stuff makes a shred of difference.
Yep! The weirdest that I get is to have a few spare ferrite beads on some of the cabling in my system that I had laying around from old PC equipment, and I'll readily admit that I don't know if they amount to a hill of beans' difference even. They're on there because I already had them laying around and because they didn't seem to make things worse. The house actually was pre-wired by the previous owner with a separate, conduited electrical run from the panel to the AV area anyway, and I just made sure to buy speakers that produced good sound in the volume range that I actually expect myself to use, to use an amp that has decent electronics, to verify that the speakers are balanced properly and are located in good spots in the room, and to use as much optical cable as I have devices.
Now I can go home and watch Mr. Nice Guy with awesome Dolby AC3 surround from my Laserdisc player!
Could some please inform Dave Chapelle of this person's name?...and videotape his unedited response?
Yeah, if there is a more obvious name for inadvertently attempting to set a positive image of someone pasty then I can't think of what it would be...
I actually wonder a little as to the actual racial makeup of this person. What if they're ultimately of Indian origin whose family immigrated through the British Empire before finally ending up with Microsoft?
I don't see why choice versus inclination matters. These are still things that can be used to discriminate or intimidate.
Besides, in this data-mining-happy world, I would argue that voting records are very, very sensitive and important. Heck, I'd rank them up there, collectively, with medical records. The very survival of our society is dependent on how we choose our leaders and representatives and who we choose, and if we compromise the integrity of that then we may as well throw the Constitution out the window too.
Why are you against laws that protect the rights of the individual? Isn't that what law is for? Compare laws that protect the rights of people to the laws that restrict what people do and you find that restricting what people do has led to over a million people in jail right now for non-violent offenses. Protecting people doesn't put them in jail, by contrast...
Simple. Make that a protected subject at work, like age, sexual preference, race, gender, health statis, and the like. It already is to a certain extent anyway, just codify or clarify in law. Something like, "Employers are not allowed to discriminate based on voter preferences or statistics, nor are employers permitted to research, investigate, or record the voting record or preferences of any U.S. Citizen."
I kind of like the idea of a serial number on a ballot in concert with a receipt, stub, or carbon copy that the voter retains for their own records, should they desire to do so. Of course, I also believe that voting should still be done on a medium that is physically marked or etched by the voter, to ensure that there's an audit trail to keep the counters honest.
Remember, it's not just he who votes, it's he who counts the votes that matters. I'd love it if U.S. election laws prohibited tallying equipment manufacturers from making political contributions and from lobbying in any way...
If people spent half of the time that they spend on crappy video games on the real activities that those video games mimick, we probably wouldn't have a generation of fatasses.
Bowling, hockey, baseball, basketball, football... Add up the cost of the equipment to play plus whatever fees are incurred to play. Now, add up the costs of the video game systems, video games, and the cost of the health club membership that one would need to actually keep one somewhat in shape, and see how the two numbers line up...
As for music, I'll stick with my drums. Like real guitar players versus "guitar hero", a real, good drummer is a lot cooler than someone who's good at mimicking what the software wants for inputs to simulate the results of drumming.
Well, a certain amount of time to consume one's food before being told to leave is also expected, and this restaurant didn't provide that, nor had anyone brought the bills to the various tables...
Don't be an idiot. How are they getting anything but a grainy surveillance cam picture? Ever worked with them? Even the 720x480x30fps images are pretty much useless for identification in most setups, because they have to cover too much area. So that's not going to work...
Some larger stores have much, much better surveillance now, with cameras that have high resolution and good optical zoom. The four cameras per screen overview mode might be low resolution, but if they do see something that warrants zooming in then they can get to their XGA mode quality and actually see what's going on. Of course, they have to be pointed in the right direction at the right time, but it probably still happens sometimes.
Its the same as the signs that say "we reserve the right to search your packages." They can put them up all they want - diesn't give them the legal right. You can refuse, and there is NOTHING they can do about it. Even if they call the cops... Just refuse, and tell them "Charge me first. THEN you can look. But be prepared for a false arrest charge!"
Anyone can, however, perform a Citizen's Arrest to legally detain you, so long as law enforcement is actually contacted. They may not have the right to search you, but they can detain you so long as they don't transport you, with the exception of bringing you straight to law enforcement or the court. Here in Arizona, according to one of the TV-advertising lawyer's websites Any person, such as a security guard can detain if they witness you committing a misdemeanor, and they can detain you if they strongly suspect that you have committed a felony. It would appear, however, that non-law-enforcement cannot search you legally at all. It also appears that police cannot search your person, legally, unless they are actually arresting you (cite), and to arrest you, again, they have to witness the misdemeanor or strongly suspect you of a felony. What isn't clear to me is if a rent-a-cop who has made a citizen's arrest can tell the law enforcement officer that they witnessed a misdemeanor in order to get the law enforcement officer to search the citizen's arrestee or not.
If the store in question has no video record of a potential misdemeanor theft in progress and detained without formally making a citizen's arrest then I'd bet that the cop would tread carefully, or would have to ask the store employee who detained the individual declare in front of him a citizen's arrest before continuing. So, remember kiddies, shoplift just before a shift change at your local retail store! *grin*
Heck, you can even refuse to show your receipt to the stupid "Walmart Greeter" when you're leaving, and they have NO legal right to do anything. Trying to keep you from leaving at that point is unlawful confinement - aka kidnapping.
I haven't shown a receipt at Fry's Electronics in years, and I won't. In some small way maybe I'm tempting them into trying something, but once the items in the bag are paid for then they're mine, and if anyone were to ask I'd tell them to go speak with the cashier at the register if they have any questions.
I will, however, still show my receipt at Costco and other membership-required stores, because as a requirement to maintaining my membership I have to. So, if I don't want to show it I can withhold showing it, but then I can't shop there anymore either. As membership is required to enter the place and is required to transact business at the register I can't truly refute if I want to continue doing business with them there.
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...but nothing in life is fair anyway. Obama was mentioned 20% more than McCain (946/786) overall. June 4th to Election Day it's even tighter at 7% (626/584), and as far as cover stories, 17% more (176+41 vs 144+41).
Considering that 1) he was somewhat unknown, and 2) not the same old white guy that we've always had, I can see why he was featured more. Besides, we've known McCain's stances and basic principles since his run in 2000 at least, so we actually needed to hear a bit from the other candidate.
There are potential problems in computer-assisted voting systems too, especially touch screen systems, when the input sensors aren't calibrated right. We've already seen a lot of that with current touch screen systems where the vote tallies as being for the wrong candidate, and probably out of calibration errors.
We use optical scan ballots here, and other than there being some news stories of IDIOTS who can't friggin' connect two lines with a pen, they seem to be working well.
I could see how computer-assisted voting might work, if you start with ready-to-use, human-readable ballot scan sheets and have the terminal print the information on the sheet in the same manner that a human would fill out the form, such that the human who votes can take his ballot and review it. If you can't do that, though, a simple pen and paper system with optical scan makes a lot more sense.
I partly don't understand how Diebold could fail so badly at making voting machines unless they're actively trying to fail this badly, based on the performanace of their ATMs...
Didn't Michael Dorn (Worf of Star Trek: The Next Generation) buy a fighter or a trainer after he was done with TV?
I've actually wondered, since all of the, "get payloads into orbit," and, "get payloads shot into space," development has already been done, how hard would it be to actually develop a mission, even in the private sector, to make the journey back and forth? You'd have to carry enough fuel to launch from the surface of Mars, but as Martian gravity is a little more than Earth's, that should be less fuel intensive than launching from Earth anyway. You'd have to carry supplies for keeping the astronauts alive for two or three years depending on how long it takes and how long you stay, but both the Americans and the Russians have experience with space stations that might help make planning that part of the mission easier, and as we've already landed on the Moon and have returned to Lunar orbit to then proceed to leave orbit to return to Earth we already know how to go from orbit to flight.
As I (admittedly not an expert) see it, a voyaging craft would have to be constructed, probably from pieces in orbit, similar to a space station but potentially with a power plant designed for not exclusively solar use, and much heavier on the supplies storage and crew sanity than the current ISS. Tethered or bolted to this craft would be a landing module with quarters for at least a single extended Mars mission, if not something designed to possibly be visited multiple times over the course of many missions. It could even be comprised of both hard pieces and of soft, inflated modules, so that the hard parts are always there for future missions, and that soft, inflatable modules are brought fresh for expanded crew amenities for the duration of each mission, to be used only until the mission concludes. Also, probably bolted in, would have to be a return-to-space craft to launch from the ground up to the still-orbiting voyaging craft, only for the purposes of returning the landing crew back to orbit. Future missions could use the same voyaging craft and the same ground-based facility, with a new return to orbit craft sent each time, or else the one from the first mission refurbished. It'd probably be cheaper to just build another one rather than to try to build one solidly enough to survive multiple uses, kind of like how the Russians have a Soyuz that is only good for one trip. In fact, a Soyuz or an Apollo-type vehicle might be a good vehicle to use to get from Earth to the orbiting voyaging craft.
One stumbling block that I see, though, would be law and order on such a long mission, as well as human nature like sexuality. We're immature enough as a country that there'd be those who'd vocally oppose mandatory birth control or vasectomes, and unfortunately the government would probably listen to them.
For some reason one of the higher profile high school and college robotics competitions (whose name escapes me) would seem to lead toward this goal, at least as far as the frame and payload of a lander/takeoff vehicle is concerned. Of course, in this they'd have to switch from propellers to rockets, and they'd have to massively scale up both in size and in payload, but if the contest only covers the scope of the mechanics of flight and not the part about keeping occupants alive and comfortable then this could be interesting.
I'd be perversely pleased if some high school club somewhere managed to make a design that passed the tests...
I'd be more worried about hostage situations where people with such a system are held hostage by making their own limbs hold the dead-man switch while the perps get away...
I don't know, since the Florida Bar is using what can be interpreted as the Nuclear Option in his disbarment, it might cause lawyers to consider the ramifications of their Bar certifications if Mr. Thompson as a client goes crazy on them. They might not lose the ability to ever practice law ever again, but they might end up with some form of disbarment like the ten year option.
If you can afford to manufacture keyboards on a large scale, you can probably afford to get into the lawsuit needed for this...
People might have been calling the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD the next VHS vs. Betamax, but I didn't see it that way.
Laserdisc has been around almost as long as consumer VHS. But, unlike when Disney and others dropped the cost of VHS movies to $20, Laserdisc stayed expensive, often $50 or more per title. Laserdisc remained a premium format, VHS became the common format, and VHS outsold LD in droves.
Fast-forward to 2000 or so, and DVD is the next hot thing. Laserdisc is still being made, but it's almost done. DVD companies use their brains, and realise that if they want to make DVDs replace VHS and not just replace LD that they need to make them cheap. Thus, the price was common originally around $30, then $20, then $16.99, with some titles as low as $5.00 new, on sale. Great! Those who never saw LD and only saw VHS see a significant quality improvement as they get to use most of their 525 scan lines, instead of about half of them, and with the prices being competitive they see no reason to keep buying those old tapes.
Jump to now. DVD is reasonably well established. DVD has replaced VHS like CD replaced cassettes. People know it, they like it. They see how nice it is, and how much it basically looks like regular broadcast TV, or Cable, or Satellite on their analog TVs, and how it looks pretty good on their digital TVs. Many people have amassed large collections of DVDs and the money spent in those purchases is fresh in the minds. Now, Sony wants everyone to buy an expensive player, expensive titles (twice or more the cost of DVDs), and all that they can really claim is that it's better looking. Trouble is, most of us still need analog converter boxes for HDTV, most of us still use composite cable or coax, and even those of us who are videophiles with huge collections don't necessarily see enough benefit to bother with the added expense. We have our consumer format in DVD and by all reaoning it's a great format with good quality. Why should we buy the elite format in Blu-ray when we've got something that already conveys the eye candy, and already has all of the special features, languages, multiple versions, and the like?
Yes, I actually do collect Laserdiscs. I collect DVDs. I don't see how my older projector will make any use of the new format, and as projectors are expensive, HDMI-capable receivers are expensive, HDMI cables in 50' lengths are expensive, and what I have works wonderfully, I don't see any need to upgrade to anything new until something that I already have breaks, and I mean something more than my DVD player chunking out. Even then, I might buy a Blu-ray player if my DVD player breaks, but that would only be for the ability to possibly play blu-ray discs, and as the standards for Blu-ray aren't finalized, I still don't see any advantage to buying a player that might be obsolete by the time I get around to buying titles in its format.
Blu-ray is the next Laserdisc, and the sooner that Sony realises this and markets it accordingly, the better it'll be for them and for the consumer.
I fall into this category... I even played the original Grand Theft Auto with an overhead view, and I regularly still enjoy playing Carmageddon II.
Now, mind you, sometimes I get the impulse to do something violent to someone, but then I load up a violent video game and get it out of my system in a safe manner and I'm good to go.
More importantly, the Federal Government regulates interstate commerce, and this has come up before with catalogs. All that Amazon.com is, truly, is a catalog, and referrers are simply telling one where to go, in that catalog, or giving out catalog item numbers, and out-of-state catalog transactions and the taxes therein are not the responsibility of the seller as the financial transaction is occurring in the seller's state, not in the buyer's.
In a perfect world they'd find McBride in contempt of court and throw him in jail, or they'd find him legally incompetent and insane and would have him committed to a wonderful place with padded walls where he'd be perfectly allowed to ramble on and on about whatever he thinks is true, but in reality they'll probably just strike his testimony from the record.
This still explains NOTHING to me. I hear the words coming out of your mouth, and they sound like English, but the order that they're in doesn't make any friggin' sense...
Now I know how my parents felt when I tried to tell them to buy me a 3dFX Voodoo Rush video card for the AGP bus, but it had to be the Hercules-branded one with 8MB RAM on it...
In all seriousness, my laptop, my wife's laptop, my PC, my wife's PC, the PVR in the entertainment center, and the cheap portable DVD players that we're considering getting for my wife and for her parents all use DVDs, not Blu-Ray. EVEN IF the desktop PCs become cheap to upgrade to Blu-ray I'd have to buy at least two readers and a burner, and I'd still have to buy laptop drives and install them, and I'm not aware of any reasonably-priced ($100) Blu-ray portable player.
I'm still converting Laserdisc, SVHS, and VHS (thanks to COX Cable for removing Turner Classic Movies from analog cable) into a format that will at least play on the laptops if not be burnt back to DVD, and I'm not going to add even more optical players to my already electrical-straining entertainment system until I'm truly convinced that I should bother.
In my opinion, the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD was a red herring anyway. Like with Betamax, Sony still has to compete with another less expensive, consumer friendly format, and their only advantage this time is that their device can play regular DVDs. Rather than a format elimination, I suspect that Blu-ray will be to Laserdisc as DVD is to VHS; the videophiles will spend the money for better quality (or the perception of it based on the sum of equipment in their racks), while the regular consumer will go, "Oh! Look! Spaceballs is five bucks in the bargain bin!", or, "That promotional price for The Bourne Ultimatum at fifteen ninety-nine is a steal!" (with the unsaid, "Compared to $30 for Blu-ray.") and the technology might be adopted, but again, not nearly as widespread as a cheap, good, established format.
Now I can go home and watch Mr. Nice Guy with awesome Dolby AC3 surround from my Laserdisc player!
Sounds like a good thing if you want to bounce back from illness or injury...
Yeah, if there is a more obvious name for inadvertently attempting to set a positive image of someone pasty then I can't think of what it would be...
I actually wonder a little as to the actual racial makeup of this person. What if they're ultimately of Indian origin whose family immigrated through the British Empire before finally ending up with Microsoft?
I don't see why choice versus inclination matters. These are still things that can be used to discriminate or intimidate.
Besides, in this data-mining-happy world, I would argue that voting records are very, very sensitive and important. Heck, I'd rank them up there, collectively, with medical records. The very survival of our society is dependent on how we choose our leaders and representatives and who we choose, and if we compromise the integrity of that then we may as well throw the Constitution out the window too.
Why are you against laws that protect the rights of the individual? Isn't that what law is for? Compare laws that protect the rights of people to the laws that restrict what people do and you find that restricting what people do has led to over a million people in jail right now for non-violent offenses. Protecting people doesn't put them in jail, by contrast...
Human error and incompatible bureaucracies will be the two things preventing 1984 from ever truly coming true...
Instead we'll see Brazil...
Simple. Make that a protected subject at work, like age, sexual preference, race, gender, health statis, and the like. It already is to a certain extent anyway, just codify or clarify in law. Something like, "Employers are not allowed to discriminate based on voter preferences or statistics, nor are employers permitted to research, investigate, or record the voting record or preferences of any U.S. Citizen."
I kind of like the idea of a serial number on a ballot in concert with a receipt, stub, or carbon copy that the voter retains for their own records, should they desire to do so. Of course, I also believe that voting should still be done on a medium that is physically marked or etched by the voter, to ensure that there's an audit trail to keep the counters honest.
Remember, it's not just he who votes, it's he who counts the votes that matters. I'd love it if U.S. election laws prohibited tallying equipment manufacturers from making political contributions and from lobbying in any way...
If people spent half of the time that they spend on crappy video games on the real activities that those video games mimick, we probably wouldn't have a generation of fatasses.
Bowling, hockey, baseball, basketball, football... Add up the cost of the equipment to play plus whatever fees are incurred to play. Now, add up the costs of the video game systems, video games, and the cost of the health club membership that one would need to actually keep one somewhat in shape, and see how the two numbers line up...
As for music, I'll stick with my drums. Like real guitar players versus "guitar hero", a real, good drummer is a lot cooler than someone who's good at mimicking what the software wants for inputs to simulate the results of drumming.
Well, a certain amount of time to consume one's food before being told to leave is also expected, and this restaurant didn't provide that, nor had anyone brought the bills to the various tables...
If the store in question has no video record of a potential misdemeanor theft in progress and detained without formally making a citizen's arrest then I'd bet that the cop would tread carefully, or would have to ask the store employee who detained the individual declare in front of him a citizen's arrest before continuing. So, remember kiddies, shoplift just before a shift change at your local retail store! *grin* I haven't shown a receipt at Fry's Electronics in years, and I won't. In some small way maybe I'm tempting them into trying something, but once the items in the bag are paid for then they're mine, and if anyone were to ask I'd tell them to go speak with the cashier at the register if they have any questions.
I will, however, still show my receipt at Costco and other membership-required stores, because as a requirement to maintaining my membership I have to. So, if I don't want to show it I can withhold showing it, but then I can't shop there anymore either. As membership is required to enter the place and is required to transact business at the register I can't truly refute if I want to continue doing business with them there.