Civilian death ratio is apples to oranges comparison, since higher civilian ratio is expected in an urban combat environment. I was referring to what is accepted in the political environment, specifically the scale of civilian casualties and destruction for a given mission given technological improvements. To take out a military target we no longer would accept WWI style sacking of cities, WWII carpet bombings, or vietnam style napalm attacks in civilian areas. Now acceptable conventions requires occupation and policing a city, with limited strikes on specific targets.
Killing people, especially innocent civilians, SHOULD be difficult, if not because your conscience is stopping you, then maybe because the technology has problems, or it's not practical.. Where have you been? Improved technology has allowed a political climate to make killing civilians more difficult. In ancient times, logistical issues meant armies could raze cities, rob food stores, etc., because they needed to survive. WWII the technology to only hit military targets didn't exist so carpet bombing killing tens of thousands of people was an accepted convention of war. Now a bomb goes awry and kills a half dozen people and the news jumps all over it.
That's pretty much what you implied with the statement "They look at it and think "well, we could go back and redo the logic... or just have it run 16.67% slower.""
Of course, the problem is, you've taken care of the extra screen real estate, but now you're only getting 50 fps Maybe that's because the TV refresh rate for PAL is 50hz (25fps) and NTSC is 60Hz (30fps). The frame rate difference is because of the TVs not the developers.
There's alot of ways to detect atoms. Human "Seeing" is just detecting the light bouncing off/radiated by an object. For example atomic force microscopy uses a very sharp needle and detects the force of the individual atoms.
IBM even used it to move individual atoms to spell "IBM".
a steel-suited African-American construction worker How the hell did he try to pass himself off as superman? "Yeah I'm Superman, I was just in the Carribean getting a tan"
There's a small contraption to help humanity deal with the situation, it's called Occam's Razor There's also a small contraption called statistics, which tells us our data set is too small to really understand what goes on in the universe. If you applied Occam's Razor to the patchwork of science you would decide to throw everything out the window. We have decided that certain theories are "good enough" for now until we can come up with something better.
Sounds like the kind of girl who goes out on saturday partying instead of playing D&D, and IMing on the computer instead of compiling the latest open source program. Definately not the/. crowd type.
State's rights was the preservance of sovereignty, to decide how your own state was run. The formation of the union basically required the states to give up part of that, and compromises were made. They couldn't just "pick their own number of electors," they could try, but any semblance of order would be gone and the Constitution meaningless. When forming governing bodies, which requires people to give up power, compromises are made. A modern example is the UN. The "powerful" nations like Russia and the US would never have joined except for the provision of the Security council, which gives those nations veto authority. Why would self sufficient, less populated countries allow themselves to be ruled by less powerful more populated countries? Same as states forming the union, why would the self sufficient south let itself be ruled by the more populated north? The south feared one day the north deciding slavery is abolished ruining their industries, the smaller states feared unequal laws such as interstate taxation on their goods. The compromise is putting systems in place protecting the individual interests such that an overall governing body can be formed, for the UN it was the security council, for the south it was 3/5th rule, for smaller states it was the senate. Yes these are contrivances, but necessary to convince those under rule to give up certain amount of liberty for the formation of the governing bodies. They are basically limits on the control given up. Are they fair? No. Were they necessary? Yes.
I agree with your statement He was constructing a society convenient to his personal freedoms, even at the expense of others. My disagreement with you is on the phrase"to ensure his own presidential victory" I can't see tying his defense of state's rights to "ensuring" his election as president 13 years later. I seriously doubt Jefferson "knew" that he needed the 3/5ths rule to become president. He did what he was supposed to do, represent the south in the construction of the Constitution and work to preserve their rights when they joined the union. He did so because of a fundamental belief in the rights of the states, and preservation of his personal wealth, not because he wanted to become president at some point in the future.
They may overreact to a lot of things, but that prevents them from getting dinged from some of the real threats. I see you subscribe to "the war on terror"
Re:Now if hackers could just learn to hack the gov
on
Good Bad Attitude
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· Score: 1
Politicians are like hackers, they find loopholes in systems, social engineer, and sometimes just break the rules to get power. They just hack human systems rather than machine ones.
Too many technically gifted people don't understand the value of the human systems. There was just a/. article about "the man who could have been bill gates." Bill Gates understood the human systems aspect, and was able to create billions with less technical talent. One problem is that young people seem to think that the wealth and the power is on THEIR side
No the young think wealth and power is so overwhelimingly against them that they can't do anything about it, so reject the rules completely. They don't realize how to work together, to convince people, to use the rules to their advantage.
Rather than complaining the patent system is bad, start patenting things, form open intellectual collectives. Rather than complaining about goverment run for office, or form a geek coaliton that has enough voters to exert political influence.
I don't think our views are that much different. The concessions made in the Constitution were done because states realized they couldn't have too much power (as under the Articles of Confederation) but still did not want to give up their all sovereignty. Jefferson, as many others believed the Revolution was to get away from a single central governing body that could impose its will on the states, as the British monarchy had done. On the opposing side the Federalists believed the Revolution was fought to create our own strong central governing body. The Constitution became a compromise in between. Preserving the rights of the states, as well as creating a strong enough central goverment to regulate trade, taxation, and lead the union. The "tyranny of the minority" is muted by the house, the "tyranny of the majority" is muted by the senate, balance in the legislative branch. The rule of the majority comes with the executive branch slightly tilted towards the majority. I am not debating whether or not these ideas are outdated, there are points for either side of the issue. My main disagreement was your original assertion that Jefferson's representation of state's rights was a way attain the presidency.
Fighting to preserve the rights of people you represent is a far cry from trying "to ensure his own presidential victory" over a decade later. Jefferson did what he was supposed to do fight for the values of the people he represented. When he took his turn as president He did not "just take his turn" as president, he was embroiled in a fiercely contested election. In fact it was a non-slave state (New York) that tipped the balance in favor of Jefferson's party One could also ask why a state like New York would join a union where Delawarans had more voting power New York still has more power (more votes), there is just a system where the majority can't just completely overrun the minority. The system works against the populous states from imposing their will unchecked, so you don't end up with a mobocracy.
Which is why Congressmembers love the Electoral College, and why Americans should hate it. Why should Americans hate it? Problems in smaller states have to be addressed, rather than being ignored under the roar of the majority.
was engineered partly by Jefferson to ensure his own presidential victory, as his Southern state allies got more electors by counting slaves Take off the tin foil hat, it wasn't Jefferson trying to rig the presidential election. Ratification of Constitution - 1787, Election of Jefferson - 1800. So Jefferson planned the 3/5th vote for an election 2 presidents (including one of his rivals John Adams) later. Yes you are right, many things in the constitution were done to preserve state's rights. States were more like seperate countries, with their own systems of taxation, goverment, etc. Why would a state like Delaware join a union where it would have no voice? For the union to be formed compromises needed to be made. These protections were put in place to protect against mobocracy towards smaller states.
Then you can always take the unmarked ballots out of the paper tray in the voting machine You have just created a way to compromise the machine. You have allowed somebody the possibility of stuffing the machine with pre-completed ballots? The end user won't know, they just know they pushed the buttons and out came a filled out scantron. What about the machine that is out of ink, but the users don't notice and place the "blank" scantron in the box.
What's the problem with the manual sharpie voting to begin with? Everytime you add a level of complexity you'll add a level of problems. How many voters would go by until somebody noticed the ink went out? Also, the problem with the touch screen paper trail, is there still are things going on in the background, how do you know bubble "A" on line 8 was for the candidate you wanted? Because the computer is "interpreting" your entry you still need software auditing. A punch card, or line draw, or other low tech system that the user is in complete control of, would be less prone to tampering/problems.
They wanted a republic where well-educated elected representatives made all the decisions. One thing to note is that the "elite" had even more power in the early US as Senators were not selected by the people, but rather the state legislatures (until IIRC the 17th amendment) Of course one of the ironies under the old system is Al Gore would be vice president, given the electors were to vote for the "top two" most qualified individuals and the one receiving the most votes would be president, the second vice president. If states apportioned presidential electors in proportion to votes, most of the probability the anomaly of the winner in the electoral college getting the fewest popular votes would disappear. That system could become an even worse nightmare for litigation. All sorts of "rounding" rules and one candidate might fight for a recount in all the states where 1% move could get them 1 extra electoral vote. Not to mention increasing the odds of runoff elections, since a 3rd party candidate could more easily prevent the 50+1 majority needed by the constitution.
lotteries. Why not simply have the touch screen voting system print the voter's choices on a perfectly printed scantron card which can then be inserted physically into the ballot box No system is perfect. What if there is a printing error on the scantron sheet itself leaving a mark in one of the bubbles, what if the printer runs low on ink, or clogs, or the linear motor becomes loose, or you have a paper jam. Why add an unneeded layer of complexity? This is one of those situations where it's best to keep things simple. You need to ask yourself, is this change going to introduce more errors than it solves? Are a few hanging chads worse than a complete machine crash? I'm more willing to accept errors by the end user (old person in florida marking the wrong spot) than systematic errors (machines losing votes, excessive delays, etc)
The process is confusing to people who think the election is a kingdom in Everquest When the poll worker asks why I spent 12 hours in front of the screen, I'll just say I was camping Al Gore, but he didn't spawn.
Slashdot Mirror
Civilian death ratio is apples to oranges comparison, since higher civilian ratio is expected in an urban combat environment.
I was referring to what is accepted in the political environment, specifically the scale of civilian casualties and destruction for a given mission given technological improvements.
To take out a military target we no longer would accept WWI style sacking of cities, WWII carpet bombings, or vietnam style napalm attacks in civilian areas.
Now acceptable conventions requires occupation and policing a city, with limited strikes on specific targets.
The AFM glides along the top, you are basically getting the top half, the connections between the mountains are the atomic bonds.
Killing people, especially innocent civilians, SHOULD be difficult, if not because your conscience is stopping you, then maybe because the technology has problems, or it's not practical..
Where have you been? Improved technology has allowed a political climate to make killing civilians more difficult.
In ancient times, logistical issues meant armies could raze cities, rob food stores, etc., because they needed to survive. WWII the technology to only hit military targets didn't exist so carpet bombing killing tens of thousands of people was an accepted convention of war. Now a bomb goes awry and kills a half dozen people and the news jumps all over it.
That's pretty much what you implied with the statement "They look at it and think "well, we could go back and redo the logic... or just have it run 16.67% slower.""
Of course, the problem is, you've taken care of the extra screen real estate, but now you're only getting 50 fps
Maybe that's because the TV refresh rate for PAL is 50hz (25fps) and NTSC is 60Hz (30fps). The frame rate difference is because of the TVs not the developers.
There's alot of ways to detect atoms. Human "Seeing" is just detecting the light bouncing off/radiated by an object.
For example atomic force microscopy uses a very sharp needle and detects the force of the individual atoms.
IBM even used it to move individual atoms to spell "IBM".
a steel-suited African-American construction worker
How the hell did he try to pass himself off as superman?
"Yeah I'm Superman, I was just in the Carribean getting a tan"
There's a small contraption to help humanity deal with the situation, it's called Occam's Razor
There's also a small contraption called statistics, which tells us our data set is too small to really understand what goes on in the universe.
If you applied Occam's Razor to the patchwork of science you would decide to throw everything out the window. We have decided that certain theories are "good enough" for now until we can come up with something better.
But wait the "heat particle" is not only a particle, its a wave! So much for "simple" explainations.
It's a gene sequence?
I thought it was one of those pictures that if you stare at it right turns 3D... stupid waste of 4 hours!
Don't worry, I'm sure there are plenty of decent programming girls when you get out into the real world.
*holds back laughter*
Sounds like the kind of girl who goes out on saturday partying instead of playing D&D, and IMing on the computer instead of compiling the latest open source program. /. crowd type.
Definately not the
State's rights was the preservance of sovereignty, to decide how your own state was run. The formation of the union basically required the states to give up part of that, and compromises were made. They couldn't just "pick their own number of electors," they could try, but any semblance of order would be gone and the Constitution meaningless.
When forming governing bodies, which requires people to give up power, compromises are made. A modern example is the UN. The "powerful" nations like Russia and the US would never have joined except for the provision of the Security council, which gives those nations veto authority. Why would self sufficient, less populated countries allow themselves to be ruled by less powerful more populated countries? Same as states forming the union, why would the self sufficient south let itself be ruled by the more populated north?
The south feared one day the north deciding slavery is abolished ruining their industries, the smaller states feared unequal laws such as interstate taxation on their goods.
The compromise is putting systems in place protecting the individual interests such that an overall governing body can be formed, for the UN it was the security council, for the south it was 3/5th rule, for smaller states it was the senate.
Yes these are contrivances, but necessary to convince those under rule to give up certain amount of liberty for the formation of the governing bodies. They are basically limits on the control given up. Are they fair? No. Were they necessary? Yes.
I agree with your statement He was constructing a society convenient to his personal freedoms, even at the expense of others.
My disagreement with you is on the phrase"to ensure his own presidential victory"
I can't see tying his defense of state's rights to "ensuring" his election as president 13 years later. I seriously doubt Jefferson "knew" that he needed the 3/5ths rule to become president. He did what he was supposed to do, represent the south in the construction of the Constitution and work to preserve their rights when they joined the union. He did so because of a fundamental belief in the rights of the states, and preservation of his personal wealth, not because he wanted to become president at some point in the future.
They may overreact to a lot of things, but that prevents them from getting dinged from some of the real threats.
I see you subscribe to "the war on terror"
Politicians are like hackers, they find loopholes in systems, social engineer, and sometimes just break the rules to get power. They just hack human systems rather than machine ones. /. article about "the man who could have been bill gates." Bill Gates understood the human systems aspect, and was able to create billions with less technical talent.
Too many technically gifted people don't understand the value of the human systems. There was just a
One problem is that young people seem to think that the wealth and the power is on THEIR side
No the young think wealth and power is so overwhelimingly against them that they can't do anything about it, so reject the rules completely. They don't realize how to work together, to convince people, to use the rules to their advantage.
Rather than complaining the patent system is bad, start patenting things, form open intellectual collectives. Rather than complaining about goverment run for office, or form a geek coaliton that has enough voters to exert political influence.
I don't think our views are that much different.
The concessions made in the Constitution were done because states realized they couldn't have too much power (as under the Articles of Confederation) but still did not want to give up their all sovereignty.
Jefferson, as many others believed the Revolution was to get away from a single central governing body that could impose its will on the states, as the British monarchy had done. On the opposing side the Federalists believed the Revolution was fought to create our own strong central governing body. The Constitution became a compromise in between. Preserving the rights of the states, as well as creating a strong enough central goverment to regulate trade, taxation, and lead the union.
The "tyranny of the minority" is muted by the house, the "tyranny of the majority" is muted by the senate, balance in the legislative branch. The rule of the majority comes with the executive branch slightly tilted towards the majority.
I am not debating whether or not these ideas are outdated, there are points for either side of the issue. My main disagreement was your original assertion that Jefferson's representation of state's rights was a way attain the presidency.
Fighting to preserve the rights of people you represent is a far cry from trying "to ensure his own presidential victory" over a decade later. Jefferson did what he was supposed to do fight for the values of the people he represented.
When he took his turn as president
He did not "just take his turn" as president, he was embroiled in a fiercely contested election. In fact it was a non-slave state (New York) that tipped the balance in favor of Jefferson's party
One could also ask why a state like New York would join a union where Delawarans had more voting power
New York still has more power (more votes), there is just a system where the majority can't just completely overrun the minority. The system works against the populous states from imposing their will unchecked, so you don't end up with a mobocracy.
Which is why Congressmembers love the Electoral College, and why Americans should hate it.
Why should Americans hate it? Problems in smaller states have to be addressed, rather than being ignored under the roar of the majority.
was engineered partly by Jefferson to ensure his own presidential victory, as his Southern state allies got more electors by counting slaves
Take off the tin foil hat, it wasn't Jefferson trying to rig the presidential election. Ratification of Constitution - 1787, Election of Jefferson - 1800. So Jefferson planned the 3/5th vote for an election 2 presidents (including one of his rivals John Adams) later.
Yes you are right, many things in the constitution were done to preserve state's rights. States were more like seperate countries, with their own systems of taxation, goverment, etc. Why would a state like Delaware join a union where it would have no voice? For the union to be formed compromises needed to be made. These protections were put in place to protect against mobocracy towards smaller states.
Then you can always take the unmarked ballots out of the paper tray in the voting machine
You have just created a way to compromise the machine. You have allowed somebody the possibility of stuffing the machine with pre-completed ballots? The end user won't know, they just know they pushed the buttons and out came a filled out scantron. What about the machine that is out of ink, but the users don't notice and place the "blank" scantron in the box.
What's the problem with the manual sharpie voting to begin with? Everytime you add a level of complexity you'll add a level of problems. How many voters would go by until somebody noticed the ink went out?
Also, the problem with the touch screen paper trail, is there still are things going on in the background, how do you know bubble "A" on line 8 was for the candidate you wanted? Because the computer is "interpreting" your entry you still need software auditing.
A punch card, or line draw, or other low tech system that the user is in complete control of, would be less prone to tampering/problems.
They wanted a republic where well-educated elected representatives made all the decisions.
One thing to note is that the "elite" had even more power in the early US as Senators were not selected by the people, but rather the state legislatures (until IIRC the 17th amendment)
Of course one of the ironies under the old system is Al Gore would be vice president, given the electors were to vote for the "top two" most qualified individuals and the one receiving the most votes would be president, the second vice president.
If states apportioned presidential electors in proportion to votes, most of the probability the anomaly of the winner in the electoral college getting the fewest popular votes would disappear.
That system could become an even worse nightmare for litigation. All sorts of "rounding" rules and one candidate might fight for a recount in all the states where 1% move could get them 1 extra electoral vote. Not to mention increasing the odds of runoff elections, since a 3rd party candidate could more easily prevent the 50+1 majority needed by the constitution.
lotteries. Why not simply have the touch screen voting system print the voter's choices on a perfectly printed scantron card which can then be inserted physically into the ballot box
No system is perfect. What if there is a printing error on the scantron sheet itself leaving a mark in one of the bubbles, what if the printer runs low on ink, or clogs, or the linear motor becomes loose, or you have a paper jam. Why add an unneeded layer of complexity?
This is one of those situations where it's best to keep things simple. You need to ask yourself, is this change going to introduce more errors than it solves? Are a few hanging chads worse than a complete machine crash?
I'm more willing to accept errors by the end user (old person in florida marking the wrong spot) than systematic errors (machines losing votes, excessive delays, etc)
The process is confusing to people who think the election is a kingdom in Everquest
When the poll worker asks why I spent 12 hours in front of the screen, I'll just say I was camping Al Gore, but he didn't spawn.
Not to mention:
Nov15th = EQ2, WoW; Nov 16th= Prince of Persia: Warrior Within;