Any application will crash when your system is low on memory.
On my system, IE becomes unstable more readily than Mozilla when I start running low on system resources (for example, if I have moderator points and I'm just trying to read old articles at thresh=2 in multiple windows). I might have been stressing widget limits rather than memory, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy that Mozilla doesn't crash every time I get moderator access.
Btw, if you're wondering why Guninski's website doesn't list vulnerabilities in Mozilla, it's because he contracts with Netscape to report bugs directly to Netscape, which are then entered into bugzilla as Netscape-confidential.
There are several bugs in Netscape 6 that webmasters will have to work around for a while, just like they have to work around Netscape 4, IE4, and IE5 bugs now. So while it's great that Netscape 6 does a better job at adhering to standards than IE5 does, that alone doesn't justify releasing a product that isn't free of bugs.
On the other hand, I think Netscape had good judgement as to the timing. I don't think waiting another month after branch point would have eliminated all of the nasty bugs, but I think it would have set back the development of the Mozilla trunk and hence NS 6.1+ several weeks. I'm glad the weeks of rtm triage spam and "I can't believe you're not going to fix this for NS 6.0" flamewars are over for now. (Waiting another month before the branch point probably wouldn't have helped much either, because new bugs would have been introduced during that extra month.)
I'm not saying that waiting another month wouldn't have reduced the number of bugs, just that it wouldn't have helped as much as it might seem it would have. And NS did need to get a new browser out the door with NS 4.76 rotting and with IE gaining more and more marketshare.
I saw the link in a chatroom and didn't know that it had already been posted and moderated up elsewhere on slashdot. And I'm above the karma cap, so that post has lost me four karma points so far even though it has a score of 3. So.. moderation whore, maybe, but no longer a karma whore:)
Good points, but I think plenty of nonvoters (including minors) [are still | will still be] frustrated.
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Re:Punchcards == Computers
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 1
And then there are voters who can't recognize faces. Not that I'd mind, as long as I thought it would make the voting more fair on the whole (or, if you're cynical, if I thought it would help my favorite candidate win), because I'm sure the names would still be prominent.
I've heard some people say that electronic voting would give faster and more accurate instant results, but is that really what we want?
This year we had continuous polls for several months before the election, announcing changes that were not statistically significant on the front page of each day's newspaper. ISTM that this turned the election into a sport, and caused voters not strongly affiliated with a party to choose sides too quickly. Politicians, who were also watching the polls, refused to take serious stands on many issues because they were only worried about the centrists' reactions to what they say, and reactions to the changes in poll numbers.
Then we had exit polls and instant results on Tuesday. Of course the TV networks did it: each network got more viewers, and the election came out so close partly as a result of people watching the count and then deciding whether to vote, or whether to vote for Nader.
Now we have a tense situation where one half or the other of the population is going to be really pissed no matter it is resolved.
You've got it all wrong. The geeks shall internet the earth!
For the record, I stole that off of thinkgeek, where it is "Blessed are the Geeks, for they shall internet the earth." Sorry for not providing a link earlier.
Mark wrote:
>
> Clarence (Andreas M. Schneider) wrote:
>
[
> > Clarence wrote:
> > > ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape6/
]
> > Now "Permission denied" (before my download was complete).
>
> It took me several attempts, but at about 12:20 AM, I was able to grab
> all the components and install.
Be careful. We have not announced the product yet, and typically pre-push
various candidate builds just to test out the distribution mechanism and
site. What you got may not end up being the final bits.
I recommend that when the final bits are actually released you should
compare the date stamp in your user agent with someone who did download the
final bits and make sure they are the same. If they differ I'd recommend
re-installing the real release because the fixes we've accepted in the past
week have been really serious ones (security exploits and things of about
that level).
Those shills in Palm Beach county (they've got to be Gore operatives, in my opinion), should, if they are honest, say, "Gosh, how stupid and foolish of me! I'll do better next time!" Instead of the whining they are doing now.
If I make a mistake that causes me to lose data because a computer interface is set up poorly, I go file a bug. If I lived in Palm Beach and made a mistake due to poor UI that caused the result the election of the US president to go a different way, I would definitely be whining, and not just to cover my ass.
Btw, the California mail-in absentee ballot also has a UI problem. It requires you to sign in two places but the instructions aren't clear if you just read through them once.
if the ballot had all the candidates names to the left of the punch-outs, they would have had to use very small print, and people would have had a hard time reading it at all
On the los angeles (california) ballots, the president/vp choices were each two holes apart (bush/cheney 7, buchanan/foster 9, phillips/frazier 11, etc). The other positions didn't need extra space because only one name was listed for each party. The state measures (initiatives, etc) were spaced so yes/no were next to each other, but then one hole was skipped before the yes for the next measure. Even with all of that space skipped, I think we had several columns of holes left.
Had Nader not been running, most of his 3% in Florida would have gone to Gore, giving the veep the presidency.
Had Nader not been running, Gore and Bush would have used different campaign strategies than they did. Heck, another party might have taken the Greens' place as the "left of the dems" party. Assuming there was no other party in the place of the Greens, though, perhaps the dems would moved a few millimeters right and grabbed some centrist voters. Whether that would have been a good thing is debatable.
Are west-coasters who wait until 7:30 to decide whether to vote for Gore or Nader idiots? I don't think so, but I do think that the fact that they can do so is not especially fair.
Its all well and fine to say that your vote made a difference in the count... "boy, I'm glad that we won/lost by 6342 votes instead of 6341 votes"...or that you are "doing your part," but I can't believe how few people actually think about the fact that their own personal INDIVIDUAL vote almost never ever ever ever makes THE difference.
I disagree. I think that *too many* people take this into account, and decide not to vote as a result. These people are often ignoring several other factors:
There are several races, at least several of which are near 50%-50%, giving them a chance of tipping some vote is considerably higher than 1/(#voters).
The winner of the election is not the only outcome decided by the tally. Choices during the next election cycle will depend on which states were "close". An initiative you like may not pass in your state, but a 47% may encourage people in other states to try to pass similar initiatives or laws, or may get a similar initiative on the ballot in several years.
To be fair, I should note that some East coast voters may have decided not to vote because they figured their vote would be partially offset by potential nader voters choosing their vote after 8pm EST.
Slashdot Mirror
Lain, as in Serial Experiments: Lain? That was a cool series.. well, at least the first set of episodes.
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Netscape (or an outside contributor) could add an option to Mozilla to load on computer startup, it's just that nobody has done it yet.
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On my system, IE becomes unstable more readily than Mozilla when I start running low on system resources (for example, if I have moderator points and I'm just trying to read old articles at thresh=2 in multiple windows). I might have been stressing widget limits rather than memory, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy that Mozilla doesn't crash every time I get moderator access.
Btw, if you're wondering why Guninski's website doesn't list vulnerabilities in Mozilla, it's because he contracts with Netscape to report bugs directly to Netscape, which are then entered into bugzilla as Netscape-confidential.
--
On the other hand, I think Netscape had good judgement as to the timing. I don't think waiting another month after branch point would have eliminated all of the nasty bugs, but I think it would have set back the development of the Mozilla trunk and hence NS 6.1+ several weeks. I'm glad the weeks of rtm triage spam and "I can't believe you're not going to fix this for NS 6.0" flamewars are over for now. (Waiting another month before the branch point probably wouldn't have helped much either, because new bugs would have been introduced during that extra month.)
I'm not saying that waiting another month wouldn't have reduced the number of bugs, just that it wouldn't have helped as much as it might seem it would have. And NS did need to get a new browser out the door with NS 4.76 rotting and with IE gaining more and more marketshare.
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(moderators: tired of election jokes? then moderate this down as flamebait!)
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*** Resolved 216.206.242.164 to irc.fbi.gov.handed.me.an.o-line.st
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Wow, that's a nice aphorism. Did you come up with that, or do you know who did? I can't find it on ag.
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This year we had continuous polls for several months before the election, announcing changes that were not statistically significant on the front page of each day's newspaper. ISTM that this turned the election into a sport, and caused voters not strongly affiliated with a party to choose sides too quickly. Politicians, who were also watching the polls, refused to take serious stands on many issues because they were only worried about the centrists' reactions to what they say, and reactions to the changes in poll numbers.
Then we had exit polls and instant results on Tuesday. Of course the TV networks did it: each network got more viewers, and the election came out so close partly as a result of people watching the count and then deciding whether to vote, or whether to vote for Nader.
Now we have a tense situation where one half or the other of the population is going to be really pissed no matter it is resolved.
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Gee, if he went for a target audience even a little more specific than that, he wouldn't sell enough copies to justify writing the book.
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argh, i want it to be easier to tell urls apart from each other, not harder.
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For the record, I stole that off of thinkgeek, where it is "Blessed are the Geeks, for they shall internet the earth." Sorry for not providing a link earlier.
--
Look for the thread "NS6 on ftp.netscape.com", which started last night (11/9/00).
--
>
> Clarence (Andreas M. Schneider) wrote:
>
[
> > Clarence wrote:
> > > ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape6/
]
> > Now "Permission denied" (before my download was complete).
>
> It took me several attempts, but at about 12:20 AM, I was able to grab
> all the components and install.
Be careful. We have not announced the product yet, and typically pre-push
various candidate builds just to test out the distribution mechanism and
site. What you got may not end up being the final bits.
I recommend that when the final bits are actually released you should
compare the date stamp in your user agent with someone who did download the
final bits and make sure they are the same. If they differ I'd recommend
re-installing the real release because the fixes we've accepted in the past
week have been really serious ones (security exploits and things of about
that level).
-Dan Veditz
(Dan works at NS)
--
You've got it all wrong. The geeks shall internet the earth!
--
If I make a mistake that causes me to lose data because a computer interface is set up poorly, I go file a bug. If I lived in Palm Beach and made a mistake due to poor UI that caused the result the election of the US president to go a different way, I would definitely be whining, and not just to cover my ass.
Btw, the California mail-in absentee ballot also has a UI problem. It requires you to sign in two places but the instructions aren't clear if you just read through them once.
--
Some people feel more pressure to finish voting quickly when there's a long line behind them, which they just waited through.
--
On the los angeles (california) ballots, the president/vp choices were each two holes apart (bush/cheney 7, buchanan/foster 9, phillips/frazier 11, etc). The other positions didn't need extra space because only one name was listed for each party. The state measures (initiatives, etc) were spaced so yes/no were next to each other, but then one hole was skipped before the yes for the next measure. Even with all of that space skipped, I think we had several columns of holes left.
--
Had Nader not been running, Gore and Bush would have used different campaign strategies than they did. Heck, another party might have taken the Greens' place as the "left of the dems" party. Assuming there was no other party in the place of the Greens, though, perhaps the dems would moved a few millimeters right and grabbed some centrist voters. Whether that would have been a good thing is debatable.
--
--
--
I disagree. I think that *too many* people take this into account, and decide not to vote as a result. These people are often ignoring several other factors:
- There are several races, at least several of which are near 50%-50%, giving them a chance of tipping some vote is considerably higher than 1/(#voters).
- The winner of the election is not the only outcome decided by the tally. Choices during the next election cycle will depend on which states were "close". An initiative you like may not pass in your state, but a 47% may encourage people in other states to try to pass similar initiatives or laws, or may get a similar initiative on the ballot in several years.
To be fair, I should note that some East coast voters may have decided not to vote because they figured their vote would be partially offset by potential nader voters choosing their vote after 8pm EST.--