One thing I don't get is why all the whoopla about absoultely correct vote tallies for the popular vote for president.
As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter - aside from various sports like commentary entertainment on November 2nd, and party back thumping - the popular vote has exactly nothing to do (0% influence) on who becomes president.
The president is elected by the electors selected by the (state legislature or appointed by the state goveners? IDK, but will check this out) in the electorial college. There is no law, custom, or requirement that any electors vote any way but how they want, they do not have to try and approximate the popular vote, heck the system was designed when they probably would have no idea what the popular vote turned out to be anyway.
My guess is that to have any real say (as much as is possible today) you should be voting for state and local governments that are in your party, and making sure their elections are scam free - because they will be the ones (state) that actually pick the president, they will be the ones making or breaking things like the recently proposed constitutional ammendment etc... They will be affecting you as much or more than who is in the whitehouse.
Of course I'm not saying I agree with the way the government is currently set up. Sadly it seems to be mangled between a states have the power system as originally set up and a Federal power system as has been pushed more and more since the civil war. So we have elections originally set up to go through the states, when the federal govt was more like the EU than today, but much more local control from the federal government.
First, I don't think people are in any hurry to upgrade. Second, even if they are, it will most likely take about 5 years from first release for a substantial portion of consumers to have a player. At least, where I live, people didn't start buying DVD players till they averaged $100. That took awhile.
Third, there needs to be a noticable quality improvement. On regular TV's I can see the difference between VHS and DVD. Will I be able to tell the difference between DVD and HD-DVD?
If not, I am betting many won't exactly be rushing out to get new players, and many less to get new players and new TV's - and HDTV's are still in the $1k+ range AFAIK, far from the $100 average for regular TV's.
Finally, and somewhat off topic, how much detail can the average american see or differiantiate between at a range of about 6 ~ 10 feet? My father doesn't see any difference between VHS recorded at EP and DVD. I'm 23 and can, but my eyesight isn't getting any better - how many 50 yr olds can see the difference? Is age a factor?
I'm just asking, it may not be a factor in DVD vs HD-DVD, but eventually the human eye will not be able to distinguish the improvement - this is already happening to the human ear with DVD-A vs CD for many. At that point, how do you convince people to "upgrade" to the latest greatest format?
The problem is privacy there. Google already tracks searches, --- the privacy concerns of verifying who you are to them are staggering.
Do you really want Google records for perhaps what type of porn you like, or that you looked for serials, or even that you wanted to know about communism being supeniaed for various court cases etc...
An interesting question of course follows from this, User A obtains the pre-release source from user B, under the terms of the GPL. Now, User A can modify that and redistribute it - correct?
And here, Sveasoft cannot drop their subscription rights because they legally are not redistributing any code from Sveasoft... right?
What about the game cheats? I know the one mod chip I ever had experiance with, it also performed MANY cheat functions. Or is it also illegal to cheat at a game?
So this is competing with the crytec engine? How do you think it will stack up?
Not that I care really as I haven't played a FPS since Quake 2 with any real zeal.
You go through one level shooting anything that moves with various weapons, you've gone through them all.
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Yes, but I fail to see why you think Bush would be any better a steward of your taxes than a democrat. Granted, he did give money back - but he's billons in the hole, and someone will have to pay for it. Maybe not Bush, but I don't believe we can operate at a 300-500 billion a year defecit forever.
I really don't see how we can pay that back without raising taxes back or more, or lowering spending. I really doubt anyone from the major parties is going to lower spending (well not Bush or Kerry) - granted they will spend it in different places, but they will both spend as much I'll bet. Now - unless you believe that money can really come out of thin air, eventually someone will have to raise taxes to pay for Bush's spending(well, the whole govt's spending).
I really think it comes down to where you want to see federal money go - coporate interests, business incentives and military - vote GOP. Environment, welfare, and "social programs" vote Democrats. Neither? You are SOL then I think.
Hmmm, well I use Opera 7.52, have read their site requirements and talked to their support to be told IE only for "newer" browsers.
Now I don't use Mozilla or Firefox and won't for the near future because I'm on dial-up and download times are hell, but my point is even when I point out that their site works if I ID as IE6, they won't just let Opera access the site.
Well in Opera 7.52 (which I use) you go to file -> sessions and pick what you want to do, save, open, or whatever. On save, you have a choice to set this session as what you startup as, you can later set/change this in preferences.
I use Opera almost exclusively, and often hear it has problems with Javascript. Could someone point out to me what those problems are? Because I just don't seem to experiance javascript problems.
I just don't get this, what is the difference of 10 seconds in the beginning of the day? Versus 30 seconds difference per page load?(Disclaimer, on dial-up).
I mean, geeze it takes 20-30 seconds for the browser to start... How often do you start the browser anyway? One, two times a day? I mean, if you are using the program I can't see closing it intermittantly.
First, though I didn't really say it clearly, I'm running SuSE.
I don't know what to say about lack of specific software running. You get to choose from thousands of software packages if you want but most people just select the default load which seems fairly standard across distros.
It almost sounds like you're suggesting that choice is a bad thing?
I meant people who for whatever reason need outlook to connect to exchange server, or need Photoshop, or Lotus Smartsuite, or Diablo II or any of a number of specific software to run, not a class of software like wordprocessing which there are replacements for.
The average user really doesn't have a very difficult time adjusting to how to install linux applications. It only seems to be the windows zealots who com plain about it.
Well, I'm a long time Windows user, but certainly not a zealot. My family is the same, and we really have a hard time with Linux, specifically SuSE for installing things and generally doing more than oohhing at KDE 3.2 and playing the included games. I think we are too used to the way things work in Windows, and many things are very non-obvious to us. I hate to recommend making the desktop more like Windows, but I can't really justify spending days and days learning the simpler things about using Linux like installing NEW games when I can already do that and more in Windows.
Yes, this is somewhat my problem. I'm apathetic. So is most of America. To get these people to change I believe they will need to not only be able to do what they can in Windows, and I mean all of it, but actually be able to do MORE. And they need to be able to do this without investing more than a day or two learning it. Otherwise I believe that many, myself included, just don't think it's worth the effort.
The main problem with Linux is installing other software. Now, I know it's wrong to think of Mandrake, SuSe, Redhat, Debian, Gentoo as "Linux" but damn it, that's what the average person sees.
Now there are about 5 different ways to install things in "Linux", of course usually you would use the one for your distro, but how does the average user know which one that is? Also, many of these aren't point and click.
I download a staticly linked rpm for SuSE, click on it. I get to extract it - ok so far. Then I go and click on the extracted file. Nothing. If I click on it inside of Konqurer I get a choice to install with YaST. OK that doesn't seem to do anything. The readme says to type make install blah blah...
make not a recoginized bash command? Ok.
Anyway, I honestly think Linux needs to grab the moderate power users from Windows. The people who like to install other software to try it out or whatever. But the install will pretty much need to get down to click the installer, next,next,put it in/home/me/programs/, next, next, finish.
And using online update isn't the same, what if what you want to install didn't come with your distro, and isn't on their servers?
Many windows people (moderate power users) go along seeing interesting software, download the installer to a temp dir, and after awhile try and install it. I honestly think the huge difference in installing software in Linux vs Windows is one of the main things that slows down migration. Probably right after the lack of specific software running.
Hmm, I happen to like Opera's "continue from last time" feature. If the browser or machine crashes, or I close it or whatever, I can just continue where I left off with that selection on startup - all tabs, history, etc...
Yes, the scary thing is that my reason for voting for Kerry, and the reason for many I know, is that he "is NOT Bush". What a great reason to elect someone president... because of who he isn't.
Well, I was going to hit you for the fact that VNC doesn't require installing software, then I saw the imperitive may.
Well, since I'm commenting anyway, let me say that it is the hardware as much as or more than the software setup that makes me like my computer. Let's see you get my memorix keyboard and MS Intellimouse on all public computers, much less my sisters entirely different logitech hardware. I already mistype or feel weird using a different mouse or keyboard.
Ok, in this thread I've been a little bit trollish and sarcastic because of the run around feeling I've been getting from everyone online I've asked about Linux. So my bad.
Is there some reason no one wants to throw out something like "www.download.com is a good repository" or something? I'm not asking you or anyone to find the game, lead me through installing it or anything much, just asking if you have a repository you recommend.
See, the problem is - nothing I know from windows really translates over to Linux. I don't know how to evaulate what is a good download site for linux. I guess sourceforge probably is - but that's based on all the good Windows stuff there and my vague understanding it has something to do with OSS and maybe Linux. I could be wrong.
What I don't know is - can I point YaST to www.sourceforge.com and have it work? The User Guide that came with SuSE 9.1 just says that you can set your own servers, but doesn't say how you find a compatible server.
Anyway, I'm tired of wasting my time asking what apparently are stupid questions, I'm tired of bothering, and arguing with random people on the internet, I think the only thing I've accomplished is to piss off myself and a lot of other people.
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One thing I don't get is why all the whoopla about absoultely correct vote tallies for the popular vote for president.
As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter - aside from various sports like commentary entertainment on November 2nd, and party back thumping - the popular vote has exactly nothing to do (0% influence) on who becomes president.
The president is elected by the electors selected by the (state legislature or appointed by the state goveners? IDK, but will check this out) in the electorial college. There is no law, custom, or requirement that any electors vote any way but how they want, they do not have to try and approximate the popular vote, heck the system was designed when they probably would have no idea what the popular vote turned out to be anyway.
My guess is that to have any real say (as much as is possible today) you should be voting for state and local governments that are in your party, and making sure their elections are scam free - because they will be the ones (state) that actually pick the president, they will be the ones making or breaking things like the recently proposed constitutional ammendment etc... They will be affecting you as much or more than who is in the whitehouse.
Of course I'm not saying I agree with the way the government is currently set up. Sadly it seems to be mangled between a states have the power system as originally set up and a Federal power system as has been pushed more and more since the civil war. So we have elections originally set up to go through the states, when the federal govt was more like the EU than today, but much more local control from the federal government.
First, I don't think people are in any hurry to upgrade. Second, even if they are, it will most likely take about 5 years from first release for a substantial portion of consumers to have a player. At least, where I live, people didn't start buying DVD players till they averaged $100. That took awhile.
Third, there needs to be a noticable quality improvement. On regular TV's I can see the difference between VHS and DVD. Will I be able to tell the difference between DVD and HD-DVD?
If not, I am betting many won't exactly be rushing out to get new players, and many less to get new players and new TV's - and HDTV's are still in the $1k+ range AFAIK, far from the $100 average for regular TV's.
Finally, and somewhat off topic, how much detail can the average american see or differiantiate between at a range of about 6 ~ 10 feet? My father doesn't see any difference between VHS recorded at EP and DVD. I'm 23 and can, but my eyesight isn't getting any better - how many 50 yr olds can see the difference? Is age a factor?
I'm just asking, it may not be a factor in DVD vs HD-DVD, but eventually the human eye will not be able to distinguish the improvement - this is already happening to the human ear with DVD-A vs CD for many. At that point, how do you convince people to "upgrade" to the latest greatest format?
The problem is privacy there. Google already tracks searches, --- the privacy concerns of verifying who you are to them are staggering.
Do you really want Google records for perhaps what type of porn you like, or that you looked for serials, or even that you wanted to know about communism being supeniaed for various court cases etc...
An interesting question of course follows from this, User A obtains the pre-release source from user B, under the terms of the GPL. Now, User A can modify that and redistribute it - correct?
And here, Sveasoft cannot drop their subscription rights because they legally are not redistributing any code from Sveasoft... right?
Sorry, I meant single Player games.
What about the game cheats? I know the one mod chip I ever had experiance with, it also performed MANY cheat functions. Or is it also illegal to cheat at a game?
So this is competing with the crytec engine? How do you think it will stack up?
Not that I care really as I haven't played a FPS since Quake 2 with any real zeal.
You go through one level shooting anything that moves with various weapons, you've gone through them all.
Yes, but I fail to see why you think Bush would be any better a steward of your taxes than a democrat. Granted, he did give money back - but he's billons in the hole, and someone will have to pay for it. Maybe not Bush, but I don't believe we can operate at a 300-500 billion a year defecit forever.
I really don't see how we can pay that back without raising taxes back or more, or lowering spending. I really doubt anyone from the major parties is going to lower spending (well not Bush or Kerry) - granted they will spend it in different places, but they will both spend as much I'll bet. Now - unless you believe that money can really come out of thin air, eventually someone will have to raise taxes to pay for Bush's spending(well, the whole govt's spending).
I really think it comes down to where you want to see federal money go - coporate interests, business incentives and military - vote GOP. Environment, welfare, and "social programs" vote Democrats. Neither? You are SOL then I think.
Isn't this the same thing alexa used to be?
Why would anyone want this? Is it also supposed to be similar to the old what's related in Netscape 4.x (Powered by alxea back in the day?)?
Hmmm, well I use Opera 7.52, have read their site requirements and talked to their support to be told IE only for "newer" browsers.
Now I don't use Mozilla or Firefox and won't for the near future because I'm on dial-up and download times are hell, but my point is even when I point out that their site works if I ID as IE6, they won't just let Opera access the site.
Or, you could just install Opera or Mozilla and have the same thing, with a much lower chance of breaking the rest of the system.
Well in Opera 7.52 (which I use) you go to file -> sessions and pick what you want to do, save, open, or whatever. On save, you have a choice to set this session as what you startup as, you can later set/change this in preferences.
Well, Opera likes to use memory if you have it - and why not? I never bought something not to use it.
You can set how much ram cache to use(what uses most of the memory) with alt-p, history and cache, and change memory from automatic to whatever.
I use Opera almost exclusively, and often hear it has problems with Javascript. Could someone point out to me what those problems are? Because I just don't seem to experiance javascript problems.
www.ameritrade.com - for people with an account you have to use IE (well.. or Netscape 4.x), or spoof IE to login.
I just don't get this, what is the difference of 10 seconds in the beginning of the day? Versus 30 seconds difference per page load?(Disclaimer, on dial-up).
I mean, geeze it takes 20-30 seconds for the browser to start... How often do you start the browser anyway? One, two times a day? I mean, if you are using the program I can't see closing it intermittantly.
First, though I didn't really say it clearly, I'm running SuSE.
I don't know what to say about lack of specific software running. You get to choose from thousands of software packages if you want but most people just select the default load which seems fairly standard across distros. It almost sounds like you're suggesting that choice is a bad thing?
I meant people who for whatever reason need outlook to connect to exchange server, or need Photoshop, or Lotus Smartsuite, or Diablo II or any of a number of specific software to run, not a class of software like wordprocessing which there are replacements for.
The average user really doesn't have a very difficult time adjusting to how to install linux applications. It only seems to be the windows zealots who com plain about it.
Well, I'm a long time Windows user, but certainly not a zealot. My family is the same, and we really have a hard time with Linux, specifically SuSE for installing things and generally doing more than oohhing at KDE 3.2 and playing the included games. I think we are too used to the way things work in Windows, and many things are very non-obvious to us. I hate to recommend making the desktop more like Windows, but I can't really justify spending days and days learning the simpler things about using Linux like installing NEW games when I can already do that and more in Windows.
Yes, this is somewhat my problem. I'm apathetic. So is most of America. To get these people to change I believe they will need to not only be able to do what they can in Windows, and I mean all of it, but actually be able to do MORE. And they need to be able to do this without investing more than a day or two learning it. Otherwise I believe that many, myself included, just don't think it's worth the effort.
The problem is what if I want to install something that doesn't come with the distro?
The main problem with Linux is installing other software. Now, I know it's wrong to think of Mandrake, SuSe, Redhat, Debian, Gentoo as "Linux" but damn it, that's what the average person sees.
...
/home/me/programs/, next, next, finish.
Now there are about 5 different ways to install things in "Linux", of course usually you would use the one for your distro, but how does the average user know which one that is? Also, many of these aren't point and click.
I download a staticly linked rpm for SuSE, click on it. I get to extract it - ok so far. Then I go and click on the extracted file. Nothing. If I click on it inside of Konqurer I get a choice to install with YaST. OK that doesn't seem to do anything. The readme says to type make install blah blah
make not a recoginized bash command? Ok.
Anyway, I honestly think Linux needs to grab the moderate power users from Windows. The people who like to install other software to try it out or whatever. But the install will pretty much need to get down to click the installer, next,next,put it in
And using online update isn't the same, what if what you want to install didn't come with your distro, and isn't on their servers?
Many windows people (moderate power users) go along seeing interesting software, download the installer to a temp dir, and after awhile try and install it. I honestly think the huge difference in installing software in Linux vs Windows is one of the main things that slows down migration. Probably right after the lack of specific software running.
Hmm, I happen to like Opera's "continue from last time" feature. If the browser or machine crashes, or I close it or whatever, I can just continue where I left off with that selection on startup - all tabs, history, etc...
You could also try Opera, I know - not OSS, but not MS either. It has both features you ask for.
Yes, the scary thing is that my reason for voting for Kerry, and the reason for many I know, is that he "is NOT Bush". What a great reason to elect someone president... because of who he isn't.
That's how bad our system is.
Well, I was going to hit you for the fact that VNC doesn't require installing software, then I saw the imperitive may.
Well, since I'm commenting anyway, let me say that it is the hardware as much as or more than the software setup that makes me like my computer. Let's see you get my memorix keyboard and MS Intellimouse on all public computers, much less my sisters entirely different logitech hardware. I already mistype or feel weird using a different mouse or keyboard.
That's what they cannot overcome.
Ok, in this thread I've been a little bit trollish and sarcastic because of the run around feeling I've been getting from everyone online I've asked about Linux. So my bad.
Is there some reason no one wants to throw out something like "www.download.com is a good repository" or something? I'm not asking you or anyone to find the game, lead me through installing it or anything much, just asking if you have a repository you recommend.
See, the problem is - nothing I know from windows really translates over to Linux. I don't know how to evaulate what is a good download site for linux. I guess sourceforge probably is - but that's based on all the good Windows stuff there and my vague understanding it has something to do with OSS and maybe Linux. I could be wrong.
What I don't know is - can I point YaST to www.sourceforge.com and have it work? The User Guide that came with SuSE 9.1 just says that you can set your own servers, but doesn't say how you find a compatible server.
Anyway, I'm tired of wasting my time asking what apparently are stupid questions, I'm tired of bothering, and arguing with random people on the internet, I think the only thing I've accomplished is to piss off myself and a lot of other people.
I give up. It's not worth it for a hobby.