the crux of the matter is verification. there NEEDS to be a paper trail. the ONLY reasons given against paper trails are 1) cost and 2) paperjams.
Fortunately, Diebold has lots of experience dealing with both of these problems. They've been making atms for banks and others for at least a decade. It's been ages since I've seen an atm down due to a paperjam and the cost is such that every little quickymart has its own atm.
So, at least the company started out with good intentions (and they may still have them) but funny how you don't see a lot of disabled people using them.
They can still market to disabled people, just not as a medical device. Getting governent approval to market it as a medical device would open up quite a few cans of worms. It isn't the device itself, it is also that it would be required to comply with a whole slew of laws for handicapped and disabled. They can still use viral marketing, let existing customers or the New York Times suggest it to the Handicapped and Disabled population. As long as Segway doesn't make the claims directly, they are much better off legally. Once the word gets out, they will probably sell them as fast as they can make them, without the legal hassles.
I don't like the idea of anyone scooting on a crowded sidewalk at 20 mph. I encountered one of these guys in Atlanta. It doesn't matter how maneuvable the webset says they are, he wasn't getting out of anyone's way. It was everyone else jumping out of his way. If they moved at pedestrian speed, fine, but this guy belonged in bike lane.
Its full suspension and aggressive rider positioning provide an exhilarating ride for one or two people while maintaining control over a variety of terrain
Condorcet ballots may look like IRV ballots, but to the voter who wants to understand how the votes are counted, Condorcet is most certainly more complex and confusing than IRV. I do prefer it since I think it better reflects the preference of the populace, but it will be a harder sell due to the complexity and the funny french name.
I agree that the Troll Mod seems strange. When I see a comment that spawns this many quality replies, I tend to mod up. Unfortunately, I've already posted quite a few comments myself, so I can't. Hopefully, someone else will get the hint.
It's probably the other way around. It has been proven that in a "first past the post" system such as we have (see my sig), only the top two options will matter. When only two options matter, negative campaigning becomes possbile since there is only one target to sling mud at. Plus, for psychological reasons, negative compaining is more effective than positive compaiging. This is because voters get more excited about bad news than good news. (Our news industry suffers for the same reason). When only two
For those who don't remember, The Simpsons 1996 Halloween episode went sort of like this:
Treehouse of Horror VII (1996) The Halloween episode features my favorite Kang and Kodos story, in which our slobbering one-eyed aliens morph into Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. Golden moment: "I suppose you want to probe me," says Homer, on board the flying saucer. "Well, you might as well get it over with." Kang, raising a tentacle: "Stop! We have reached the limit of what rectal probing can teach us!"
I know that the Greens, the Libertarians, the Natural Law Party, the Constitution Party and others would like to have their voices individually heard and to be covered more in the news, what's the chance that they could collectively make "breaking up the Republican-Democrat duopoly" the #1 goal in their platforms? If they were *all* in agreement on this point I think there would be more notice given to all "third party" candidates.
That would be great if they could all adopt the same #1 plank. But, what about the rest of the platform? If anything the "Third Parties" are much more diverse than the other two which seem to hog the middle ground.
How would it work to put together some kind of coalition party that would make election reform its only goal? Then, conduct another official election or if that's impractical, conduct some other sort of national referendum. I'd like to see a ballot that would allow me to indicate not only which candidate I prefer, but what issues I'd like him to consider top priority.
Approval voting doesn't give a way of indicating preference. If I have a choice between A, my favorite, C, who I dispise or B who I don't particularly like, what do I do, especially if the three way race is so close that any might win? Clearly, I'd vote for A and not for C, but B is a toughy. Remember, I prefer A, if I vote for both A and B, B has a better chance of beating A. But, if I vote only for A, C might win by a narrow margin over B.
This is too similar to the process I must go through now of voting for the lessor of 2 evils or for the third party alternative in the hopes of making a statement or at least keeping his party on the ballot in future elections.
If the outcome is to truly reflect the preferences of the public, some sort of ranked system is necessary. But is IRV worse than what we have now? Does it matter whether IRV is better or worse than a french name I can't spell? At this time, we have a sorry system that needs to be replaced.
The British themselves called that hunk of land Palestine before they handed over the ungovernable colony to be a Jewish state. Why was it ungovernable? Terrorists, of course, and they weren't all Arabs.
Sure, the biblical Philistines all died out, but nowadays the word Palestine refers to the land that the British called Palestine and Palestinian refers to the people who live their who aren't Israelies. You need to get yourself up to date, to at least the 20th century.
I've heard of dropping leaflets all over Afganistan to get out the vote, but that's nothing compared to the parent's idea of dropping the entire loc onto OBL's head.
Firstly, you can't patent, trademark, or copyright an idea. The only way to keep it a secret is to keep it in your head or hidden somewhere. You can only patent a process or a device that uses your idea, and you can only copyright an expression of your idea.
Now that we've got that out of the way, we can get to what I think is your real point - fair compensation for something that most of us agree is valuable. Your ideas aren't valuable until they are used (inventions) or expressed (in writing or as a performance). Even then they become valuable only when someone other than yourself is exposed to them and values them. See, the value isn't derived by the creator's labor, but by how much other people appreciate it. Otherwise, I'd take http://slashdot.org/~siriuskase/journal/ and my garageband files, present them to the public and collect my compensation.
As more people are exposed to your idea and appreciate it, the more it spreads, the more it increases in value, whether or not you get compensated. Our tradition has been to grant a limited monopoly that you can use to get compensation from those who value your work. At some point, It was more or less arbitrarily decided that after X years, you've been compensated. But that isn't the only way it can be done.
BTW, if you clicked on the link to my journal, you owe me!!! Why, because I said so. Similarly, if you download music, some would have you pay for it even if you decide 3 seconds into the playback that it is worthless.
This is one more reason that the whole basis behind IP law needs to be reevaluated. Although we do want authors, inventors, and other creative types to be rewarded for their efforts, it is also true that what they create becomes more valuable the more it gets out into the world. Any academic knows that the more a paper gets cited, the more valuable it is. Likewise, the more a book is read, the more likely it will wind up in the canon of culturally significant books.
Creating primarily for money is shortsighted when a work has the chance to impact the larger culture. Just look at Michael Moore (ooh, isn't he ugly, but that's not the point), he's more interested in people seeing and being influenced by his movies than in getting richer off them. Enough money to be comfortable is great, but then, barriers to free movement of ideas should be relaxed.
We don't have "none of the above" in our national poll. If someone doesn't vote, who is to know he isn't just lazy? By voting for a third party, he makes a point. Maybe his candidate won't win, but whoever does will get the message if he's smart. (yeah, I know, it's a big IF.
A vote for a third party candidate is "worth" more. Your vote for a democrat or a republican won't be noticed. The bucket is too big. But it doesn't take as many drops in the Libertarian bucket to make a point. So what if they don't win, your vote is more likely to get noticed, especially if the election is close.
Google News articles are "picked" by a wide base of news editors all over the world. These are editors doing their job the old-fashioned way, determining for their readership what news to cover. The difference is that the reader now has a choice to see what storys are considered newsworthy by thousands of editors all over the world, and then possibly, read various points of view. All these articles are considered newsworthy by some editor somewhere in the world, just not the same much smaller group that controlled the news before Google started its Beta Test.
I kinda like clicking on links to see how the Hindi Times or Al Jazeera covers an American news story. Sometimes, a nonamerican point of view is enlightening. But, to often, it will be the exact same text that appears in most American newspapers. When that happens, I'm left wondering why an Indian or an Arab would want to read that story, but I'm gyped out of the POV thing.
Re:Interesting article
on
The Long Tail
·
· Score: 1
They seemed to have pretty good depth on the New Hotness of movies, but they were not serving the Long Tail sufficiently well to keep getting my money.
I agree, they need to pay more attention to their Long Tail. In my experience, if a movie is marked "long wait", it is more likely to drop out of circulation before it ever gets to me. I suspect that they only have one copy that they don't replace if it gets lost or stolen. This has happened to me enough times that if I was a pure Long Tail customer, I'd quit.
Re:Interesting article
on
The Long Tail
·
· Score: 1
Longterm Netflix users don't get the more popular titles after a while.
It's true that I mostly rent older movies and television shows. But, I've never had a problem getting new releases in a timely manner. Even though they usually say "short wait", I usually get them the day they are released. My only trick if you want to call it that, is that I time a return to arrive the morning of the new release. They always check in returns in in the morning, replace the name of the return with a message that means they are processing my account, then replace that with the name of the new release or whatever is at the top of my queue sometime during the afternoon.
My biggest complaint is that sometimes I put a movie in my queue, then after a while, I get a message that a new version is coming out sometime in the next 12 months, and it drops down into that useless list at the bottom. Why don't they send me the old version? It was good enough when I selected it, the fact that a new version is coming out in the next 12 months doesn't make it less desireable. If it does, they should let me delete it from my own queue.
Adolescents, like governments, sometimes spend money wisely. However, if they have more than they need for necessities, they might consider buying friends/votes a worthwhile expense.
Much as I dislike Microsoft, just because it is rich doesn't mean it can't work to shift the tax burden to others than itself, as long as it doed it legally. If it seems unfair, change the law.
Slashdot Mirror
Fortunately, Diebold has lots of experience dealing with both of these problems. They've been making atms for banks and others for at least a decade. It's been ages since I've seen an atm down due to a paperjam and the cost is such that every little quickymart has its own atm.
Technology is a tool, like all tools, it is neither good nor evil
They can still market to disabled people, just not as a medical device. Getting governent approval to market it as a medical device would open up quite a few cans of worms. It isn't the device itself, it is also that it would be required to comply with a whole slew of laws for handicapped and disabled. They can still use viral marketing, let existing customers or the New York Times suggest it to the Handicapped and Disabled population. As long as Segway doesn't make the claims directly, they are much better off legally. Once the word gets out, they will probably sell them as fast as they can make them, without the legal hassles.
I don't like the idea of anyone scooting on a crowded sidewalk at 20 mph. I encountered one of these guys in Atlanta. It doesn't matter how maneuvable the webset says they are, he wasn't getting out of anyone's way. It was everyone else jumping out of his way. If they moved at pedestrian speed, fine, but this guy belonged in bike lane.
http://www.gadgetopia.com/2004/10/12/SegwayCentaur .html
I want one already.
Condorcet ballots may look like IRV ballots, but to the voter who wants to understand how the votes are counted, Condorcet is most certainly more complex and confusing than IRV. I do prefer it since I think it better reflects the preference of the populace, but it will be a harder sell due to the complexity and the funny french name.
I agree that the Troll Mod seems strange. When I see a comment that spawns this many quality replies, I tend to mod up. Unfortunately, I've already posted quite a few comments myself, so I can't. Hopefully, someone else will get the hint.
It's probably the other way around. It has been proven that in a "first past the post" system such as we have (see my sig), only the top two options will matter. When only two options matter, negative campaigning becomes possbile since there is only one target to sling mud at. Plus, for psychological reasons, negative compaining is more effective than positive compaiging. This is because voters get more excited about bad news than good news. (Our news industry suffers for the same reason). When only two
I support at least one representative for DC. How many representatives would it have if it were a state?
That would be great if they could all adopt the same #1 plank. But, what about the rest of the platform? If anything the "Third Parties" are much more diverse than the other two which seem to hog the middle ground.
How would it work to put together some kind of coalition party that would make election reform its only goal? Then, conduct another official election or if that's impractical, conduct some other sort of national referendum. I'd like to see a ballot that would allow me to indicate not only which candidate I prefer, but what issues I'd like him to consider top priority.
This is too similar to the process I must go through now of voting for the lessor of 2 evils or for the third party alternative in the hopes of making a statement or at least keeping his party on the ballot in future elections.
If the outcome is to truly reflect the preferences of the public, some sort of ranked system is necessary. But is IRV worse than what we have now? Does it matter whether IRV is better or worse than a french name I can't spell? At this time, we have a sorry system that needs to be replaced.
It's nice to see the Russians getting into the reality show thing.
Sure, the biblical Philistines all died out, but nowadays the word Palestine refers to the land that the British called Palestine and Palestinian refers to the people who live their who aren't Israelies. You need to get yourself up to date, to at least the 20th century.
I've heard of dropping leaflets all over Afganistan to get out the vote, but that's nothing compared to the parent's idea of dropping the entire loc onto OBL's head.
Now that we've got that out of the way, we can get to what I think is your real point - fair compensation for something that most of us agree is valuable. Your ideas aren't valuable until they are used (inventions) or expressed (in writing or as a performance). Even then they become valuable only when someone other than yourself is exposed to them and values them. See, the value isn't derived by the creator's labor, but by how much other people appreciate it. Otherwise, I'd take http://slashdot.org/~siriuskase/journal/ and my garageband files, present them to the public and collect my compensation.
As more people are exposed to your idea and appreciate it, the more it spreads, the more it increases in value, whether or not you get compensated. Our tradition has been to grant a limited monopoly that you can use to get compensation from those who value your work. At some point, It was more or less arbitrarily decided that after X years, you've been compensated. But that isn't the only way it can be done.
BTW, if you clicked on the link to my journal, you owe me!!! Why, because I said so. Similarly, if you download music, some would have you pay for it even if you decide 3 seconds into the playback that it is worthless.
Creating primarily for money is shortsighted when a work has the chance to impact the larger culture. Just look at Michael Moore (ooh, isn't he ugly, but that's not the point), he's more interested in people seeing and being influenced by his movies than in getting richer off them. Enough money to be comfortable is great, but then, barriers to free movement of ideas should be relaxed.
We don't have "none of the above" in our national poll. If someone doesn't vote, who is to know he isn't just lazy? By voting for a third party, he makes a point. Maybe his candidate won't win, but whoever does will get the message if he's smart. (yeah, I know, it's a big IF.
A vote for a third party candidate is "worth" more. Your vote for a democrat or a republican won't be noticed. The bucket is too big. But it doesn't take as many drops in the Libertarian bucket to make a point. So what if they don't win, your vote is more likely to get noticed, especially if the election is close.
http://badnarik.org/newsfromthetrail.php?p=1346 and http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/n ews/nation/9872659.htm
Google News articles are "picked" by a wide base of news editors all over the world. These are editors doing their job the old-fashioned way, determining for their readership what news to cover. The difference is that the reader now has a choice to see what storys are considered newsworthy by thousands of editors all over the world, and then possibly, read various points of view. All these articles are considered newsworthy by some editor somewhere in the world, just not the same much smaller group that controlled the news before Google started its Beta Test.
I kinda like clicking on links to see how the Hindi Times or Al Jazeera covers an American news story. Sometimes, a nonamerican point of view is enlightening. But, to often, it will be the exact same text that appears in most American newspapers. When that happens, I'm left wondering why an Indian or an Arab would want to read that story, but I'm gyped out of the POV thing.
I agree, they need to pay more attention to their Long Tail. In my experience, if a movie is marked "long wait", it is more likely to drop out of circulation before it ever gets to me. I suspect that they only have one copy that they don't replace if it gets lost or stolen. This has happened to me enough times that if I was a pure Long Tail customer, I'd quit.
It's true that I mostly rent older movies and television shows. But, I've never had a problem getting new releases in a timely manner. Even though they usually say "short wait", I usually get them the day they are released. My only trick if you want to call it that, is that I time a return to arrive the morning of the new release. They always check in returns in in the morning, replace the name of the return with a message that means they are processing my account, then replace that with the name of the new release or whatever is at the top of my queue sometime during the afternoon.
My biggest complaint is that sometimes I put a movie in my queue, then after a while, I get a message that a new version is coming out sometime in the next 12 months, and it drops down into that useless list at the bottom. Why don't they send me the old version? It was good enough when I selected it, the fact that a new version is coming out in the next 12 months doesn't make it less desireable. If it does, they should let me delete it from my own queue.
Much as I dislike Microsoft, just because it is rich doesn't mean it can't work to shift the tax burden to others than itself, as long as it doed it legally. If it seems unfair, change the law.