The Democratic stronghold eventually trounced Dean - they took it upon themselves to define him as "unelectable," and turn Dean's overzealousness into perceived nuttiness.
I'd say that Howard Dean played a large roll in that himself. His "YEEAHHH" moment and forwarding conspiracy theories about 9-11 lost him more votes than it won him.
This is possible if you live in a big city. However, most Americans live in some sort of suburb. The closest resaurant to my house is a Dairy Queen, a fast food restaurant that specializes in ice cream but also servers burgers and chicken fingers, and it's about 4 miles away with no sidewalks once you leave the neighborhood. The next restaurant is a Bar-B-Que joint about two more miles away and across a busy interstate freeway. The nearest grocery store is almost exactly 10 miles away (and no, it's not a walmart). Twenty miles is a long way to walk, especially when the last ten are carrying groceries. I think the meat, eggs and milk would probably go bad before I got home anyway. I wish I could live in the city where I could walk everywhere, but it's way to expensive and going out after dark is not recomended in the part of town I could afford. I visited New York and was amazed at how easy it was to get everywhere. I walked from one end of Manhatten to the other and loved it. Still, there is no way I could afford to live in Manhatten, and when I stayed in Queens on another visit, I was afraid to go out after dark. I ate delivered Chinese food every night.
Stores like Walmart and Meijer saves energy. Here's why: I can drive to Lowes to pick up my screw driver, then drive to Old Navy for a T-shirt, then go to Star Furniture for that baker's rack, then drive to Exxon to fill up my tank (lots of driving), then I have to go to Hobby Lobby for my ribbon (I mean model plane... that's it), then I drive to CompUSA for my X-box game, then I go drive to Southwest Music Store for my Rush CD, then I drive to Kroger for my groceries... and so on, or I can drive to one place, Walmart, and pick up everything I need in one stop.
That actually means a lot. I have nothing but respect for Marines. I won't even say the shorter, but more common term for "Semper Fidelis" because I have not earned the right. I considered joining the Marines instead, but didn't because those guys are nuts!
30 or 40 builds, eh? What software company do you work for again?;)
Yeah, I'm gonna tell you that! When I say builds, I don't necessarily mean releases. Our official 4.0 release was actually 4.0.1.10. We are currenlty on 4.0.3.45 and things are finally more or less stable. There are just some things that can not be tested in house and don't show up until they get beat on by a customer. As soon as we find what these bugs are, we fix them, but the same customer may find 3 or 4 different bugs over the course of a couple of months. Upgrading all their systems can be a pain for both them and us.
We'll release a build between every 1-4 days, so it's not a major thing. Every major bug fix warrants a different build (because someone needs it todayto fix their bug).
Upgragde does not mean better. WindowsME was supposed to be an upgrade to 98SE. Trust me, it wasn't.
The company I work for writes software. Trust me, I would not recommend anyone to buy the first release of any upgrade we offer. Wait until it gets about 30 or 40 builds and becomes stable.
I guess you could say that the reliability of software is like a wave: It goes up until a major release, then it drops down to the bottom and starts working it's way back up again. When the software becomes perfectly reliable and feature complete, it's time to release a new version, and down we go again.
While I can't speak for The Core, when I was in Kuwait for the Army, we had full access to everything. For that matter, the Internation version of CNN or the International MTV were always on the TV in the mess hall.
I don't care how "open" or secure a system is, I want a paper trail.
We make photo kiosks. Every time someone places an order, we print a receipt. The receipt printer is one of the most reliable pieces of equipment on our systesm. We have about 60 employees. If we can do it, I see no reason why you could not have a voting machine print a paper receipt with your voting selection on it along with a unique, encrypted number. On the way out, the voter places the receipt (or paper ballot, if you will) in the drop box. Once the election is over, if everyone is satisfied with the results, the paper ballots are discarded. If there is a challenge, the paper receipts are counted and compared to the digital count. There should not be much of a difference. If the difference is enough to change the outcome, I'd say go with the paper count. However, if voting fraud is an issue, it will not be a small margin. It is doubtful that someone will try to fraud for only a couple of votes and there should never be more pieces of paper in the box than digital votes cast.
This will allow for a challenge, investigation, and is the only way to provide for a recount.
No, I did RTFA. It seemed to me that this was mostly used low orbit, reconnaissance satellites. What's the difference between a used low orbit, reconnaissance satellite and a capsule? Besides, the main mission of the Shuttles has been scientific research, space station deliveries and placing satellites in orbit. Scientific research can be handled by the space station while this thing can take over the satellite launches and act as a booster for capsules headed to the space station.
While it may not be the best possible replacement, it's bound to be much cheaper than designing a whole new solution from scratch.
I don't understand why this could not be a replacement for the soon-to-be-scrapped shuttle program. After reading the article, it seems that this thing was up and running. Why not turn it over to NASA rather than placing it into some hidden hanger to collect dust?
First, economies of scale and evolving technology will make the big budget movie of today a cheapo film of the future. Lucas spent more money on Star Wars A New Hope than he did on Revenge O' The Sith (adjusted for inflation, of course). Still, I think both paid off for him.
Next, this year's crop of movies that the Academy considered sucked IMHO. If I want to see social issues, I'll move the San Francisco or Berkeley. I go to the movies to escape all the PC BS I see every day. I want to enter a world where right is still right and wrong is still wrong. I don't care to understand why the bad guy is a bad guy except in the case of an Austin Powers movie. I really don't want to spend my hard earned money so someone can tell me that terrorists are simply misunderstood, McCarthy is bad, and gays and minorities are still being persecuted. I can get that from NPR for free. I don't think I'm alone in that opinion. If Hollywood can no longer afford big budget movies, it's not because they cost too much, it's because they are made for and by Hollywood types (or they are sequels or remakes). You're simply not going to make your big budget back while concentrating on such a limited audience.
But how many times are you going to put the gun to your head and pull the trigger? It seems we've already hit that live round a couple of times. TMI and Chernobyl certianly come to mind. Well, right now we are sitting in a car with the engine running and the garage door closed. I think we are better off with the revolver.
Well, the Bible does speak of rain and rivers running red with blood. Now we've seen it happen. Start looking for a plague of toads next and be ready with the sheep's blood.
From TFA: Critical to Louis's theory is the length of time the red rain fell on Kerala. Two months is too long for it to have been wind-borne dust, he says.
So two months is not too long for commet dust to hang around and and fall in rain? If the commet were that damn big, why only in India?
An excellent point. Outsourcing != bad. Oursourcing does not neccessarily mean overseas either. I worked for an outsource company here in the US. We provided technical support and customer service for a wide variety of companies, many who were not large enough to have their own call centers, or who did not recieve enough calls to need one. We supported notebooks from four different companies. The knowledge we received from one notebook manufacturer would bleed over to the others. This worked for the three printer companies and four desktop mfg's we supported also. We usually knew more than the in-house support departments for the companies we worked for. Unfortunately, our management cut back on us, took too many stupid contracts, and started low-balling our benefits because he was trying to sell the company and was buttering up the books. Many techs simply didn't care any more. They weren't our customers that were calling! (which is where the problem comes in)
The article also assumes that Outsourcing = customer service. This is not necessarily true either. Many companies outsource HR, accounting manufacturing, advertising, and so on. Fact is, a company that does nothing but manufacturing will probably fill those 5000 orders by next week better than the guy you have doing it now. Every company outsources something and it is because it is usually cheaper and better than creating your own department for that purpose.
To cite just one example, a recent survey of pension policyholders in the United Kingdom found that 75 percent would leave their current provider if they experienced bad customer service."
If this were true, Dell would not be the number one mfg of computers after losing 75% of their base. How many people here have called tech support and gotten someone with a thick Indian accent named "Steve"?
The problem (if you can call it that) is that Dell offers decent CPU's for cheap. Rather it be for the home or business, people are more willing to take the chance on a computer that's $200 than their competitors.
WOW! Wasn't King George elected? So are you saying that in order to protect civil liberties, you want to overthrow an elected president? Maybe my logic is flawed, but wouldn't that be violating the rights of the popular majority who voted for that president? Talk about being disenfranchised! Or are your feelings more important than the majority's?
Reminds me off all the peace protestors in NY who were threatening the Republican delegates with violence.
Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. Yeah, so? Didn't Kerry wrap himself in the flag? Disdain for the importance of human rights. If that were the case, you would not have been able to type this. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. Um... when they fly planes into buildings, they move from "scapegoat" to "terrorist". If you can't unify against your enemies, how do you unify at all? The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. It's called national defense. It protects your liberties. Didn't the French just threaten to nuke terrorist states? Are they fascists too? Rampant sexism. How on earth do you come up with this one? Can you name me an administration that has had women placed in higher positions? (as opposed to under the desk) A controlled mass media. This is my favorite. I had no idea that Rove and Bush were controlling the media. You'd think they'd stop some of the bashing they recieve every single day. Obsession with national security. Well, yeah! As opposed to what, acting French? That's right, they clamped down to. What country is not obsessed with national security? National security is the president's number one job! Religion and ruling elite tied together. I don't recall a whole lot of religion in 1940's Germany. Power of corporations protected. If you want a job, businesses must be protected. Would you suggest that we have a government take over of private property... I mean evil corporations? I think that was tried before and it didn't do a whole lot for civil liberties. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Yeah, that's why GM and Ford are in such good shape. What's the group that opposes any education reforms that would mean teaching kids? The teacher's union? How can that be? Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Well, if "intellectuals" didn't run around calling victims of 9-11 "Little Eichmans" maybe we'd have a better opinion of them. How about the artists that put a cross in urine, draw the Virgin Mary out of elephant dung or draw OBL to look like Christ, but won't stand up for the Mohammed cartoonists? Obsession with crime and punishment. You mean "Justice?" How is this bad? Rampant cronyism and corruption I don't think this is limited to Fascists Fraudulent elections. I have to call serious bullshit on this one. Sounds like America to me. You need your hearing checked.
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If we could just get this Hairy Lobster into a Harry Potter, we could have dinner.
The Democratic stronghold eventually trounced Dean - they took it upon themselves to define him as "unelectable," and turn Dean's overzealousness into perceived nuttiness.
I'd say that Howard Dean played a large roll in that himself. His "YEEAHHH" moment and forwarding conspiracy theories about 9-11 lost him more votes than it won him.
This is possible if you live in a big city. However, most Americans live in some sort of suburb. The closest resaurant to my house is a Dairy Queen, a fast food restaurant that specializes in ice cream but also servers burgers and chicken fingers, and it's about 4 miles away with no sidewalks once you leave the neighborhood. The next restaurant is a Bar-B-Que joint about two more miles away and across a busy interstate freeway. The nearest grocery store is almost exactly 10 miles away (and no, it's not a walmart). Twenty miles is a long way to walk, especially when the last ten are carrying groceries. I think the meat, eggs and milk would probably go bad before I got home anyway.
I wish I could live in the city where I could walk everywhere, but it's way to expensive and going out after dark is not recomended in the part of town I could afford. I visited New York and was amazed at how easy it was to get everywhere. I walked from one end of Manhatten to the other and loved it. Still, there is no way I could afford to live in Manhatten, and when I stayed in Queens on another visit, I was afraid to go out after dark. I ate delivered Chinese food every night.
Stores like Walmart and Meijer saves energy. Here's why:
I can drive to Lowes to pick up my screw driver,
then drive to Old Navy for a T-shirt,
then go to Star Furniture for that baker's rack,
then drive to Exxon to fill up my tank (lots of driving),
then I have to go to Hobby Lobby for my ribbon (I mean model plane... that's it),
then I drive to CompUSA for my X-box game,
then I go drive to Southwest Music Store for my Rush CD,
then I drive to Kroger for my groceries... and so on,
or I can drive to one place, Walmart, and pick up everything I need in one stop.
The rest of your ideas seem OK.
That actually means a lot. I have nothing but respect for Marines. I won't even say the shorter, but more common term for "Semper Fidelis" because I have not earned the right.
I considered joining the Marines instead, but didn't because those guys are nuts!
30 or 40 builds, eh? What software company do you work for again? ;)
Yeah, I'm gonna tell you that!
When I say builds, I don't necessarily mean releases. Our official 4.0 release was actually 4.0.1.10. We are currenlty on 4.0.3.45 and things are finally more or less stable. There are just some things that can not be tested in house and don't show up until they get beat on by a customer. As soon as we find what these bugs are, we fix them, but the same customer may find 3 or 4 different bugs over the course of a couple of months. Upgrading all their systems can be a pain for both them and us.
We'll release a build between every 1-4 days, so it's not a major thing. Every major bug fix warrants a different build (because someone needs it todayto fix their bug).
Upgragde does not mean better. WindowsME was supposed to be an upgrade to 98SE. Trust me, it wasn't.
The company I work for writes software. Trust me, I would not recommend anyone to buy the first release of any upgrade we offer. Wait until it gets about 30 or 40 builds and becomes stable.
I guess you could say that the reliability of software is like a wave: It goes up until a major release, then it drops down to the bottom and starts working it's way back up again. When the software becomes perfectly reliable and feature complete, it's time to release a new version, and down we go again.
You can't speak for the Core because you haven't earned the title of a US Marine.
I can speak for the Core... it's the CORPS that I can't speak for. (OK, that was bad)
True, I was never a Marine, nor have I ever claimed to be. "Soldier" is the title I earned.
You are correct and here I stand... corrected.
At least I know there is no such thing as an ex-Marine.
While I can't speak for The Core, when I was in Kuwait for the Army, we had full access to everything. For that matter, the Internation version of CNN or the International MTV were always on the TV in the mess hall.
I don't care how "open" or secure a system is, I want a paper trail.
We make photo kiosks. Every time someone places an order, we print a receipt. The receipt printer is one of the most reliable pieces of equipment on our systesm. We have about 60 employees. If we can do it, I see no reason why you could not have a voting machine print a paper receipt with your voting selection on it along with a unique, encrypted number. On the way out, the voter places the receipt (or paper ballot, if you will) in the drop box. Once the election is over, if everyone is satisfied with the results, the paper ballots are discarded. If there is a challenge, the paper receipts are counted and compared to the digital count. There should not be much of a difference. If the difference is enough to change the outcome, I'd say go with the paper count. However, if voting fraud is an issue, it will not be a small margin. It is doubtful that someone will try to fraud for only a couple of votes and there should never be more pieces of paper in the box than digital votes cast.
This will allow for a challenge, investigation, and is the only way to provide for a recount.
No, I did RTFA. It seemed to me that this was mostly used low orbit, reconnaissance satellites. What's the difference between a used low orbit, reconnaissance satellite and a capsule? Besides, the main mission of the Shuttles has been scientific research, space station deliveries and placing satellites in orbit. Scientific research can be handled by the space station while this thing can take over the satellite launches and act as a booster for capsules headed to the space station.
While it may not be the best possible replacement, it's bound to be much cheaper than designing a whole new solution from scratch.
To fully protect a Windows/Linux/BSD/OS X box, is to plug out the network-cable
You forgot to lock the door and remove the keyboard, mouse and monitor.
I don't understand why this could not be a replacement for the soon-to-be-scrapped shuttle program. After reading the article, it seems that this thing was up and running. Why not turn it over to NASA rather than placing it into some hidden hanger to collect dust?
I have two problems with his statement.
First, economies of scale and evolving technology will make the big budget movie of today a cheapo film of the future. Lucas spent more money on Star Wars A New Hope than he did on Revenge O' The Sith (adjusted for inflation, of course). Still, I think both paid off for him.
Next, this year's crop of movies that the Academy considered sucked IMHO. If I want to see social issues, I'll move the San Francisco or Berkeley. I go to the movies to escape all the PC BS I see every day. I want to enter a world where right is still right and wrong is still wrong. I don't care to understand why the bad guy is a bad guy except in the case of an Austin Powers movie. I really don't want to spend my hard earned money so someone can tell me that terrorists are simply misunderstood, McCarthy is bad, and gays and minorities are still being persecuted. I can get that from NPR for free. I don't think I'm alone in that opinion.
If Hollywood can no longer afford big budget movies, it's not because they cost too much, it's because they are made for and by Hollywood types (or they are sequels or remakes). You're simply not going to make your big budget back while concentrating on such a limited audience.
But how many times are you going to put the gun to your head and pull the trigger? It seems we've already hit that live round a couple of times. TMI and Chernobyl certianly come to mind.
Well, right now we are sitting in a car with the engine running and the garage door closed. I think we are better off with the revolver.
Now that NPR is on board, when can we start to build new reactors?
Well, the Bible does speak of rain and rivers running red with blood. Now we've seen it happen. Start looking for a plague of toads next and be ready with the sheep's blood.
From TFA:
Critical to Louis's theory is the length of time the red rain fell on Kerala. Two months is too long for it to have been wind-borne dust, he says.
So two months is not too long for commet dust to hang around and and fall in rain? If the commet were that damn big, why only in India?
This is not real. You can tell because Maggie really is driving the car. Just look at which side she's on!
I wonder why these questions were not part of the survey; they are no more costly to ask.
They probably outsourced their polling!
An excellent point. Outsourcing != bad.
Oursourcing does not neccessarily mean overseas either. I worked for an outsource company here in the US. We provided technical support and customer service for a wide variety of companies, many who were not large enough to have their own call centers, or who did not recieve enough calls to need one. We supported notebooks from four different companies. The knowledge we received from one notebook manufacturer would bleed over to the others. This worked for the three printer companies and four desktop mfg's we supported also. We usually knew more than the in-house support departments for the companies we worked for. Unfortunately, our management cut back on us, took too many stupid contracts, and started low-balling our benefits because he was trying to sell the company and was buttering up the books. Many techs simply didn't care any more. They weren't our customers that were calling! (which is where the problem comes in)
The article also assumes that Outsourcing = customer service.
This is not necessarily true either. Many companies outsource HR, accounting manufacturing, advertising, and so on. Fact is, a company that does nothing but manufacturing will probably fill those 5000 orders by next week better than the guy you have doing it now. Every company outsources something and it is because it is usually cheaper and better than creating your own department for that purpose.
To cite just one example, a recent survey of pension policyholders in the United Kingdom found that 75 percent would leave their current provider if they experienced bad customer service."
If this were true, Dell would not be the number one mfg of computers after losing 75% of their base. How many people here have called tech support and gotten someone with a thick Indian accent named "Steve"?
The problem (if you can call it that) is that Dell offers decent CPU's for cheap. Rather it be for the home or business, people are more willing to take the chance on a computer that's $200 than their competitors.
WOW! Wasn't King George elected? So are you saying that in order to protect civil liberties, you want to overthrow an elected president? Maybe my logic is flawed, but wouldn't that be violating the rights of the popular majority who voted for that president? Talk about being disenfranchised! Or are your feelings more important than the majority's?
Reminds me off all the peace protestors in NY who were threatening the Republican delegates with violence.
Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
Yeah, so? Didn't Kerry wrap himself in the flag?
Disdain for the importance of human rights.
If that were the case, you would not have been able to type this.
Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
Um... when they fly planes into buildings, they move from "scapegoat" to "terrorist". If you can't unify against your enemies, how do you unify at all?
The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
It's called national defense. It protects your liberties. Didn't the French just threaten to nuke terrorist states? Are they fascists too?
Rampant sexism.
How on earth do you come up with this one? Can you name me an administration that has had women placed in higher positions? (as opposed to under the desk)
A controlled mass media.
This is my favorite. I had no idea that Rove and Bush were controlling the media. You'd think they'd stop some of the bashing they recieve every single day.
Obsession with national security.
Well, yeah! As opposed to what, acting French? That's right, they clamped down to. What country is not obsessed with national security? National security is the president's number one job!
Religion and ruling elite tied together.
I don't recall a whole lot of religion in 1940's Germany.
Power of corporations protected.
If you want a job, businesses must be protected. Would you suggest that we have a government take over of private property... I mean evil corporations? I think that was tried before and it didn't do a whole lot for civil liberties.
Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
Yeah, that's why GM and Ford are in such good shape. What's the group that opposes any education reforms that would mean teaching kids? The teacher's union? How can that be?
Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
Well, if "intellectuals" didn't run around calling victims of 9-11 "Little Eichmans" maybe we'd have a better opinion of them. How about the artists that put a cross in urine, draw the Virgin Mary out of elephant dung or draw OBL to look like Christ, but won't stand up for the Mohammed cartoonists?
Obsession with crime and punishment.
You mean "Justice?" How is this bad?
Rampant cronyism and corruption
I don't think this is limited to Fascists
Fraudulent elections.
I have to call serious bullshit on this one.
Sounds like America to me.
You need your hearing checked.