This is an interesting concept... it'd drive the cost of goods sky high, but it is something that society might find acceptible.
Want to sell a good or service in the US? Require that all folks involved in its growth/manufacture/transport/assembly/management meet US requirements for wage, working conditions, etc. Of course, this requirement would violate nearly every World Trade Agreement and is therefore infeasible under current legislation, but interesting nonetheless.*
* The caveat is that if the US&Canada and Europe continue to push for higher international standards on wage, workplace conditions, etc, than the minimum international cost of employment will continue to rise, thereby reducing the savings of moving jobs overseas. Whether or not you consider this a good thing(tm) is up to you...
and while the SEC and others do their best to proteect traders, mistakes do happen. This is part of the random process of the markets, and must be accounted for when making a trade, even on options markets.
If you lost money, sorry. Unless the SEC/others can prove that somebody is liable for the initial mistaken order, you lose. Tough. Trading is risky, and sometimes the risks are completely unforseen.
If there were fewer districts, gerrymandering would be more difficult, and as it would affect a greater percentage of the population, it would be harder to pull off.
I'm not suggesting that we reduce the number of members of Congress. Rather, what if a district could elect x representatives, where x <= 5. Then, you have instant runoff elections, choosing x representatives. If a super-district is 60% Pub and 40% Dem, than it's likely that there'd be 3 Pubs and 2 Dems -- not the current 4 vs 1 scenario.
Gerrymandering would be harder because many states couldn't do it at all (they'd have a single super-district), medium sized states (6 - 10 congress critters) would have a "single line" to draw, large states (11 - 15 or so) would have a total of three districts, and CA/TX/OH/MI/FL/PA/NY/IL would still have to deal with gerrymandering, but perhaps to a lesser extent.
As a side bar, this would also result in less incumbancy, and more viable and electible third party candidates.
Some notes:
* Roughly, I'd guess a good value for x is 5... but this number is certainly open for discussion.
* Obviously if a state only has 1 rep (the Dakotas, Wyoming, etc) than the super-district is the same as their current district, but there is no district lines to be drawn there anyway because the entire state is the district (or super-district).
* States with 2, 3,..., x reps also wouldn't have any gerrymandering, a welcome change from what happens now.
* Without trying to gerrymander, state legislatures could get more work done. The courts, too!
* Would this require a US Constitutional change, or just a change in a state constitution? IANACS (Constitutional Scholar), so I have no idea.
Or, perhaps Apple will just put two headphone jacks on future iPods... this has been done before for CD players, and would be a nice feature without adding much cost, size, or weight.
Vendors pay a fee regardless of the type of currency used.
* Credit cards? Approx 3%, plus any chargebacks
* Checks? Same deal -- CheckMate is a service that ensures checks have a legit number, and the merchant must still deal with bounced checks.
* Cash? Big merchants have to pay for armored car service. Smaller merchants must still spend all the time counting and setting up deposits, as well as obtaining rolls of change. The banks aren't free moneychangers -- all of this as fees as well. More cash on hand also increases the liklihood of robbery, from outside or from an employee.
Paying cash in a restaurant helps the waitress at the expense of the Federal Government by allowing her to not report 100% of earnings -- but short of tax evasion, there are few businesses that benefit from using cash.
Want iTunes to be successful? Help them make more money, by doing the following:
* When you make a purchase, don't make one. Bundle your purchases together. Apple makes far more money if you buy 10 songs in 1 purchase than if you buy 1 song 10 different times. This is because there are transaction costs -- fees to Visa, etc. One way around this is to buy yourself a gift certificate -- this way, your credit card is only charged once, not every single time you decide to get another song.
* Share the love. Buy gift certificates for others.
* Share the software. Get other people hooked on using their media software.
I knew Apple would try to make money off of their iPods and not the downloads, but I'm still not happy that Apple isn't making something on the downloads. Perhaps their buisness model will shift a bit, and try to land smaller bands with more favorable terms... the extra profit margin might induce Apple to "push" those bands, who would then make more money too. But I digress.
Now -- seriously -- how many MPG does your vehicle get? Mine gets damned near infinite. I walk most places, and I take the T (subway) to other places. Feet don't require much oil (perhaps a drop or two for the plastics) and the subways run on electricity I believe -- so some oil power plants, but not much.
It's OK if you drive. I just ask that you do the following to help free the shackles.
* Make sure your tires are at proper air pressure. This can gain 2 MPG.
* Don't drive over 75mph -- 65 if you can help it. Nearly all engines reduce their efficiency above 60 mph.
* Make sure the next car you buy gets 3 mpg more than the one you have now.
* Carpool.
If all car owners did this, we'd reduce our consumption of oil due to cars by something like 10% a year. Since the US currently imports about 25% of its oil from OPEC Middle East Nations*, it would only take a few years to eliminate the Middle East from America's oil equations.
Don't drive a car? Here are some other things everybody can do to reduce your energy consumption:
* Turn your hot water heater down to 120 degrees. Anything hotter is almost always wasted, anything colder could result in harmful bacteria.
* Get a hot water blanket for your hot water heater. Insulating your hot water heater and pipes will result in less energy consumption.
* When your hot water heater craps out on you, replace it with at tankless hot water heater -- which doesn't require energy to heat a 40 gallon barrel of water 24 hours/day. Much cheaper in the long run.
* Make sure your doors and windows are sealed; this keeps heat in in the winter, and cold in in the summer.
* Replace your incadescent light bulbs with compact fluerescent bulbs. They use between 1/3 and 1/4 of the energy.
* In the summer, raise the thermostat to 72 or 73. In the winter, lower it to 68. Wear appropriate clothes to stay warm.
* Plant an open branched deciduous tree on the south or east side of your house to provide shade in summer and let the sun come through in winter. Plant evergreens north and west of your house to cut down on harsh winter winds.
* Remind your congresscritter about your feelings about energy conservation. He could help by raising gas taxes, encouraging high occupancy vehicle lanes, giving tax breaks for fuel efficient cars and lighting, eliminating the SUV loophole on MPG, increasing (and inforcing) CAFE standards, eliminating the enormous tax break given to small business owners who buy an unnecessary and enormous SUV.
The transition away from oil will take time, and will come from folks doing it for enviro-political reasons, as well as economic reasons. Governments will use taxes and rebates to help with this transition, but only if the elected congresscritters feel secure that these policies won't get them thrown out of office. So -- make personal changes. Encourage others to do the same. Encourage your elected officials to help.
* Yes, I've done this math correctly. OPEC oil is a bit more; I've thrown out Venezuela et al. ** If you live in Canada, Europe, or some other industrialized nation with a representative democracy, than just change the appropriate words and take action.
Brand does not necessarily imply marketing or corporatism, at least not on the most basic level.
* The Jewish faith is branded with the Star of David. You see a six sided star, drawn in the form of two equalateral triangles, and you think "Jewish".
* The UN is branded with that baby boy blue color. You see a guy with a baby blue helmet on, you think UN.
* The Red Cross. You see it, you think Red Cross (or Switzerland -- doh!).
A common look and feel allows for folks with vastly different experiences and requirements to correctly identify the same item. It also inherently provides an additional signal of stability and care to many.
You are assuming a distribution where the mean (numerical average) is equal to the median (the midpoint of the data). Are IQs like this? I have no idea.
Consider five numbers: {50, 110, 110, 110, 120} The mean is 100. The median is 110. Only 20% of the numbers were below the mean.
In short, your smart arsed comment, while funny, implies that you may in fact be "in there".
Generally, the large creditors share the assets at approximately the percentage that they're owed.
So, I'd expect those brothers -- who are owed $4.5 mil or so to get $.1M - $4.5M ($.1M if $1M assets, $50M debt; $4.5M if $10M assets, $10M debts). Of course, if the company had exactly $10M of debts and $10M of assets, the CEO would kick in a penny and avoid bankruptcy...;)
A CNN-esque hour of science news. This includes medicine, technology, space, etc. Spend some time explaining basics, and for the bigger segments, delve into higher levels of the concept.
A C-SPAN esque hour of science in politics. The current legislation that involves science, be it involving the EPA, DofE, DofT, etc. Hell, even a little bit of financial stuff would involve some science (like econ and Brownian Motion related stuff).
A debunk-the-doubters hour of science debunking everything from crop circles to John Edwards. Want to make it really interesting -- involve the skeptics.
A science and/or religion hour. This could get pretty interesting. Given that science isn't inherently in lieu of religion, one could use science to show religious claims are valid (a person really was at a location, an artifact really is made of and as old as claimed in a text, etc). Yes, this would have some overlap with history, but that's OK -- just use and explain the science. There could also be debates, etc. As long as the religious folks involved were selected to be analytical and scientific in thought, some really good discussions could result.
Certainly, there could be science hours for kids (and adults?!) of different scientific educational backgrounds. This is the "Bill Nye" hour that lots of folks would watch.
Who would advertise? Any major corporation -- Ford, GE, Microsoft -- that wants to be considered with science. Any drug company. Local colleges (from ITT to comm. college to state college). Educational toys on the "Bill Nye" type shows. Also, they could (and would) solicit grants from government agencies, the Park Foundation, etc.
It will work, as long as they don't make it a 24 hour video of MIT lectures. Keep changing up the level of science necessary to follow, the topic, and the application in life.
(This will not get modded up because I'm far too late to the discussion)
It is true that shifting the use of a network during previous peak demands will result in less deviation in travel time (read: rush hour not as horrible).
One way to reduce demand of roads is to increase the usage of less traditional means of transportation. Bicycle lanes. Better mass/public transit. HOV lanes. Tollroads. Carpooling.
Another way is to encourage shorter trips. Think "distributed computing" for neighborhoods. More, small markets result in shorter drives for everybody. This is the antithesis of Wal-Marts and Home Depots, and Americans have shown that they're willing to drive 30 minutes to save $12 by shopping at Wal-Mart. Perhaps we Americans don't value our time as much as we claim we do.
Over and over again, this writeup seemed like it came from a FUD factory. I'm sure that these cases are outstanding -- however, statements like
unless you buy a quality product you are wasting your money.
are pure drivel. Buying a $100 case for middle-of-the-road or lower requirements is a waste of money. A machine used to run your OS and assorted apps, with generic HD, motherboard, processor, and drive components does not require a high quality case. Spending $100 on one is simply a waste of dough... and not the converse, as the Tom's journalist -- or Ken -- would have you believe.
I seem to recall somebody posting a command line entry that would periodically (say, every few seconds) use wget to re-download the page, you know, just to make sure it hadn't changed or something.
Anybody remember (or l33t3r than me and able to just come up with it on his or her own) what that command line entry would happen to be?
Re:I use a similar service already
on
Snail Mail As E-Mail
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Why use a checkbook? float.
If you're a small business, a few days of float can make a big difference. You know that you'll have $foo days (3 = $foo = 7) between when you put that check in the mail or a suppliers hands and when it clears. This allows you to "pay" your bill, knowing you won't get the cash until tomorrow or the day after. You're getting 0% interest short term loans with virtually no hassle.
Small businesses like checkbooks. It allows them to pay their bills "late". Many a small business need this float to stay above boards, if only from time to time.
Maybe not. Most USian slashdotters will vote for Bush, or against Bush.
But -- all Dem hopefulls could always use help
* with finances, the sooner the better
* with grassroots efforts. This is Dean's strongsuit.
Dean will get the vote of the anti-Bush USians, if he wins the Dem primary. But to win the Dem primary, he needs their support sooner. Doing an interview with slashdot might help convert folks that will vote for him should he win the Dem primary to actually help him win the Dem primary.
I'm not defending the publication of stuff in Word Perfect, but IIRC, nearly the entire field of law uses Word Perfect instead of Word. The lawyers & judges never started using Word.
So, since Word Perfect is their industry standard, it's not unexpected that their links point to Word Perfect documents.
We have legit high tech. On a simplistic level, my group (which does communication technologies) uses about 1/3 1/3 1/3 linux/Mac/MS in our offices. Oh -- on gigabit. Advanced hardware, software, and scientific equipment abounds.
There's plenty of advanced technology in the lab, but it doesn't make it out to the field. Why? Maybe there are issues in supply chain, environment, training, power availability, cost, etc. I have no idea.
Do consider that more advanced systems are often more expensive, more complex to roll out, and more fragile. That doesn't mean that our boys overseas should be using Atari 2600s to manage the theatre, but an organization as large, multifaceted, and cautious as the military is bound to be slow to upgrade.
I agree with the other poster about gerrymandering and also agree that the Dems have been doing it in Tejas (just as both parties do it wherever possible).
The difference is this: redistricting has been done every 10 years, following a census. This isn't law, but it was a reasonable choice. A new census should require redistricting -- it's the most recent, most accurate measure of where people live. The decision to not change things in between was for a number of reasons, including: efficiency, time constraints, and that if not done every two years or five, it wouldn't divide the 10 year cycle at identical intervals in the election cycle -- and doing it every 5 years would mean recarving up the districts months before an election... not a good idea either.
So, historically, its been every 10 years. Both parties have adhered to this tradition because it just makes good sense in the big picture. For the pubs to do it now, after two years, arbitrarilly, and without proper justification*, is downright arrogant.
* The justification "the state voted Republican for president/has more registered Republicans and yet there are more Democrats elected to the US House" is not a valid complaint. People vote, not parties -- and the people are not beholden to vote for parties. Both Pubs and Dems have spent this whole saga arguing about seats for the Dems and the Pubs... nobody has talked about what best serves the will of the people. Plenty of sleaze to go around.
Note that 55 voted Yea, and 5 weren't present... including 4 Dems, who overwhelmingly voted Yea.
That's almost certainly 59 Yeas -- 67 would need to Yea to override the veto. It isn't likely for the Dems to find 8 Pubs to override a Republican POTUS veto, but it is possible, especially if the grassroots efforts by folks like Move On continue to be effective.
Of course, a veto that isn't overriden is just one more thorn in the side of Bush come election time, although it's unlikely to be an issue that will swing many voters.
Now I know we love apple and hate the RIAA, but...
on
Beatles Bite Apple
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
... if the two groups did have an agreement, signed by both parties, it would seem pretty open and shut.
The question I have is: why? Why wouldn't Apple spin off some other company named Golden Delicious Music, or produce the iPod by Granny Smith or something? They pay their lawyers to come up with stuff like this, no?
Seems like Apple Computers knowingly breached a contract. Blatently. Seems like poor managerial decision making.
Slashdot Mirror
This is an interesting concept... it'd drive the cost of goods sky high, but it is something that society might find acceptible.
Want to sell a good or service in the US? Require that all folks involved in its growth/manufacture/transport/assembly/management meet US requirements for wage, working conditions, etc. Of course, this requirement would violate nearly every World Trade Agreement and is therefore infeasible under current legislation, but interesting nonetheless.*
* The caveat is that if the US&Canada and Europe continue to push for higher international standards on wage, workplace conditions, etc, than the minimum international cost of employment will continue to rise, thereby reducing the savings of moving jobs overseas. Whether or not you consider this a good thing(tm) is up to you...
but IIRC, in nearly all states, a product cannot be advertised as "on sale" unless it is selling at a price below a former price for that item.
If it's always been $299, it simply cannot be advertised as a "sale" with a price of $299.
Again, IANAL, but your state legislator knows lots about the law. Ask him.
and while the SEC and others do their best to proteect traders, mistakes do happen. This is part of the random process of the markets, and must be accounted for when making a trade, even on options markets.
If you lost money, sorry. Unless the SEC/others can prove that somebody is liable for the initial mistaken order, you lose. Tough. Trading is risky, and sometimes the risks are completely unforseen.
If there were fewer districts, gerrymandering would be more difficult, and as it would affect a greater percentage of the population, it would be harder to pull off.
..., x reps also wouldn't have any gerrymandering, a welcome change from what happens now.
I'm not suggesting that we reduce the number of members of Congress. Rather, what if a district could elect x representatives, where x <= 5. Then, you have instant runoff elections, choosing x representatives. If a super-district is 60% Pub and 40% Dem, than it's likely that there'd be 3 Pubs and 2 Dems -- not the current 4 vs 1 scenario.
Gerrymandering would be harder because many states couldn't do it at all (they'd have a single super-district), medium sized states (6 - 10 congress critters) would have a "single line" to draw, large states (11 - 15 or so) would have a total of three districts, and CA/TX/OH/MI/FL/PA/NY/IL would still have to deal with gerrymandering, but perhaps to a lesser extent.
As a side bar, this would also result in less incumbancy, and more viable and electible third party candidates.
Some notes:
* Roughly, I'd guess a good value for x is 5... but this number is certainly open for discussion.
* Obviously if a state only has 1 rep (the Dakotas, Wyoming, etc) than the super-district is the same as their current district, but there is no district lines to be drawn there anyway because the entire state is the district (or super-district).
* States with 2, 3,
* Without trying to gerrymander, state legislatures could get more work done. The courts, too!
* Would this require a US Constitutional change, or just a change in a state constitution? IANACS (Constitutional Scholar), so I have no idea.
Or, perhaps Apple will just put two headphone jacks on future iPods... this has been done before for CD players, and would be a nice feature without adding much cost, size, or weight.
Vendors pay a fee regardless of the type of currency used.
* Credit cards? Approx 3%, plus any chargebacks
* Checks? Same deal -- CheckMate is a service that ensures checks have a legit number, and the merchant must still deal with bounced checks.
* Cash? Big merchants have to pay for armored car service. Smaller merchants must still spend all the time counting and setting up deposits, as well as obtaining rolls of change. The banks aren't free moneychangers -- all of this as fees as well. More cash on hand also increases the liklihood of robbery, from outside or from an employee.
Paying cash in a restaurant helps the waitress at the expense of the Federal Government by allowing her to not report 100% of earnings -- but short of tax evasion, there are few businesses that benefit from using cash.
Want iTunes to be successful? Help them make more money, by doing the following:
* When you make a purchase, don't make one. Bundle your purchases together. Apple makes far more money if you buy 10 songs in 1 purchase than if you buy 1 song 10 different times. This is because there are transaction costs -- fees to Visa, etc. One way around this is to buy yourself a gift certificate -- this way, your credit card is only charged once, not every single time you decide to get another song.
* Share the love. Buy gift certificates for others.
* Share the software. Get other people hooked on using their media software.
I knew Apple would try to make money off of their iPods and not the downloads, but I'm still not happy that Apple isn't making something on the downloads. Perhaps their buisness model will shift a bit, and try to land smaller bands with more favorable terms... the extra profit margin might induce Apple to "push" those bands, who would then make more money too. But I digress.
I agree. Cast off the shackles.
Now -- seriously -- how many MPG does your vehicle get? Mine gets damned near infinite. I walk most places, and I take the T (subway) to other places. Feet don't require much oil (perhaps a drop or two for the plastics) and the subways run on electricity I believe -- so some oil power plants, but not much.
It's OK if you drive. I just ask that you do the following to help free the shackles.
* Make sure your tires are at proper air pressure. This can gain 2 MPG.
* Don't drive over 75mph -- 65 if you can help it. Nearly all engines reduce their efficiency above 60 mph.
* Make sure the next car you buy gets 3 mpg more than the one you have now.
* Carpool.
If all car owners did this, we'd reduce our consumption of oil due to cars by something like 10% a year. Since the US currently imports about 25% of its oil from OPEC Middle East Nations*, it would only take a few years to eliminate the Middle East from America's oil equations.
Don't drive a car? Here are some other things everybody can do to reduce your energy consumption:
* Turn your hot water heater down to 120 degrees. Anything hotter is almost always wasted, anything colder could result in harmful bacteria.
* Get a hot water blanket for your hot water heater. Insulating your hot water heater and pipes will result in less energy consumption.
* When your hot water heater craps out on you, replace it with at tankless hot water heater -- which doesn't require energy to heat a 40 gallon barrel of water 24 hours/day. Much cheaper in the long run.
* Make sure your doors and windows are sealed; this keeps heat in in the winter, and cold in in the summer.
* Replace your incadescent light bulbs with compact fluerescent bulbs. They use between 1/3 and 1/4 of the energy.
* In the summer, raise the thermostat to 72 or 73. In the winter, lower it to 68. Wear appropriate clothes to stay warm.
* Plant an open branched deciduous tree on the south or east side of your house to provide shade in summer and let the sun come through in winter. Plant evergreens north and west of your house to cut down on harsh winter winds.
* Remind your congresscritter about your feelings about energy conservation. He could help by raising gas taxes, encouraging high occupancy vehicle lanes, giving tax breaks for fuel efficient cars and lighting, eliminating the SUV loophole on MPG, increasing (and inforcing) CAFE standards, eliminating the enormous tax break given to small business owners who buy an unnecessary and enormous SUV.
The transition away from oil will take time, and will come from folks doing it for enviro-political reasons, as well as economic reasons. Governments will use taxes and rebates to help with this transition, but only if the elected congresscritters feel secure that these policies won't get them thrown out of office. So -- make personal changes. Encourage others to do the same. Encourage your elected officials to help.
* Yes, I've done this math correctly. OPEC oil is a bit more; I've thrown out Venezuela et al.
** If you live in Canada, Europe, or some other industrialized nation with a representative democracy, than just change the appropriate words and take action.
Brand does not necessarily imply marketing or corporatism, at least not on the most basic level.
* The Jewish faith is branded with the Star of David. You see a six sided star, drawn in the form of two equalateral triangles, and you think "Jewish".
* The UN is branded with that baby boy blue color. You see a guy with a baby blue helmet on, you think UN.
* The Red Cross. You see it, you think Red Cross (or Switzerland -- doh!).
A common look and feel allows for folks with vastly different experiences and requirements to correctly identify the same item. It also inherently provides an additional signal of stability and care to many.
mean != median.
You are assuming a distribution where the mean (numerical average) is equal to the median (the midpoint of the data). Are IQs like this? I have no idea.
Consider five numbers: {50, 110, 110, 110, 120}
The mean is 100. The median is 110. Only 20% of the numbers were below the mean.
In short, your smart arsed comment, while funny, implies that you may in fact be "in there".
Generally, the large creditors share the assets at approximately the percentage that they're owed.
;)
So, I'd expect those brothers -- who are owed $4.5 mil or so to get $.1M - $4.5M ($.1M if $1M assets, $50M debt; $4.5M if $10M assets, $10M debts). Of course, if the company had exactly $10M of debts and $10M of assets, the CEO would kick in a penny and avoid bankruptcy...
Of course, IANAA, IANAL, IANACFO.
Consider this:
A CNN-esque hour of science news. This includes medicine, technology, space, etc. Spend some time explaining basics, and for the bigger segments, delve into higher levels of the concept.
A C-SPAN esque hour of science in politics. The current legislation that involves science, be it involving the EPA, DofE, DofT, etc. Hell, even a little bit of financial stuff would involve some science (like econ and Brownian Motion related stuff).
A debunk-the-doubters hour of science debunking everything from crop circles to John Edwards. Want to make it really interesting -- involve the skeptics.
A science and/or religion hour. This could get pretty interesting. Given that science isn't inherently in lieu of religion, one could use science to show religious claims are valid (a person really was at a location, an artifact really is made of and as old as claimed in a text, etc). Yes, this would have some overlap with history, but that's OK -- just use and explain the science. There could also be debates, etc. As long as the religious folks involved were selected to be analytical and scientific in thought, some really good discussions could result.
Certainly, there could be science hours for kids (and adults?!) of different scientific educational backgrounds. This is the "Bill Nye" hour that lots of folks would watch.
Who would advertise? Any major corporation -- Ford, GE, Microsoft -- that wants to be considered with science. Any drug company. Local colleges (from ITT to comm. college to state college). Educational toys on the "Bill Nye" type shows. Also, they could (and would) solicit grants from government agencies, the Park Foundation, etc.
It will work, as long as they don't make it a 24 hour video of MIT lectures. Keep changing up the level of science necessary to follow, the topic, and the application in life.
(This will not get modded up because I'm far too late to the discussion)
It is true that shifting the use of a network during previous peak demands will result in less deviation in travel time (read: rush hour not as horrible).
One way to reduce demand of roads is to increase the usage of less traditional means of transportation. Bicycle lanes. Better mass/public transit. HOV lanes. Tollroads. Carpooling.
Another way is to encourage shorter trips. Think "distributed computing" for neighborhoods. More, small markets result in shorter drives for everybody. This is the antithesis of Wal-Marts and Home Depots, and Americans have shown that they're willing to drive 30 minutes to save $12 by shopping at Wal-Mart. Perhaps we Americans don't value our time as much as we claim we do.
Over and over again, this writeup seemed like it came from a FUD factory. I'm sure that these cases are outstanding -- however, statements like
unless you buy a quality product you are wasting your money.
are pure drivel. Buying a $100 case for middle-of-the-road or lower requirements is a waste of money. A machine used to run your OS and assorted apps, with generic HD, motherboard, processor, and drive components does not require a high quality case. Spending $100 on one is simply a waste of dough... and not the converse, as the Tom's journalist -- or Ken -- would have you believe.
I seem to recall somebody posting a command line entry that would periodically (say, every few seconds) use wget to re-download the page, you know, just to make sure it hadn't changed or something.
Anybody remember (or l33t3r than me and able to just come up with it on his or her own) what that command line entry would happen to be?
Why use a checkbook? float.
If you're a small business, a few days of float can make a big difference. You know that you'll have $foo days (3 = $foo = 7) between when you put that check in the mail or a suppliers hands and when it clears. This allows you to "pay" your bill, knowing you won't get the cash until tomorrow or the day after. You're getting 0% interest short term loans with virtually no hassle.
Small businesses like checkbooks. It allows them to pay their bills "late". Many a small business need this float to stay above boards, if only from time to time.
Maybe not. Most USian slashdotters will vote for Bush, or against Bush.
But -- all Dem hopefulls could always use help
* with finances, the sooner the better
* with grassroots efforts. This is Dean's strongsuit.
Dean will get the vote of the anti-Bush USians, if he wins the Dem primary. But to win the Dem primary, he needs their support sooner. Doing an interview with slashdot might help convert folks that will vote for him should he win the Dem primary to actually help him win the Dem primary.
Make as much money as you can*, and then use it to do some of:
(a) Buy stuff. Other folks are employed making it or serving it.
(b) Invest. This results in capital for businesses to hire more people employed making or serving stuff.
This method works. Simple, really.
* Within ethical and/or legal standards, of course.
I'm not defending the publication of stuff in Word Perfect, but IIRC, nearly the entire field of law uses Word Perfect instead of Word. The lawyers & judges never started using Word.
So, since Word Perfect is their industry standard, it's not unexpected that their links point to Word Perfect documents.
but I do work for a military research lab.
We have legit high tech. On a simplistic level, my group (which does communication technologies) uses about 1/3 1/3 1/3 linux/Mac/MS in our offices. Oh -- on gigabit. Advanced hardware, software, and scientific equipment abounds.
There's plenty of advanced technology in the lab, but it doesn't make it out to the field. Why? Maybe there are issues in supply chain, environment, training, power availability, cost, etc. I have no idea.
Do consider that more advanced systems are often more expensive, more complex to roll out, and more fragile. That doesn't mean that our boys overseas should be using Atari 2600s to manage the theatre, but an organization as large, multifaceted, and cautious as the military is bound to be slow to upgrade.
I agree with the other poster about gerrymandering and also agree that the Dems have been doing it in Tejas (just as both parties do it wherever possible).
The difference is this: redistricting has been done every 10 years, following a census. This isn't law, but it was a reasonable choice. A new census should require redistricting -- it's the most recent, most accurate measure of where people live. The decision to not change things in between was for a number of reasons, including: efficiency, time constraints, and that if not done every two years or five, it wouldn't divide the 10 year cycle at identical intervals in the election cycle -- and doing it every 5 years would mean recarving up the districts months before an election... not a good idea either.
So, historically, its been every 10 years. Both parties have adhered to this tradition because it just makes good sense in the big picture. For the pubs to do it now, after two years, arbitrarilly, and without proper justification*, is downright arrogant.
* The justification "the state voted Republican for president/has more registered Republicans and yet there are more Democrats elected to the US House" is not a valid complaint. People vote, not parties -- and the people are not beholden to vote for parties. Both Pubs and Dems have spent this whole saga arguing about seats for the Dems and the Pubs... nobody has talked about what best serves the will of the people. Plenty of sleaze to go around.
Note that 55 voted Yea, and 5 weren't present... including 4 Dems, who overwhelmingly voted Yea.
That's almost certainly 59 Yeas -- 67 would need to Yea to override the veto. It isn't likely for the Dems to find 8 Pubs to override a Republican POTUS veto, but it is possible, especially if the grassroots efforts by folks like Move On continue to be effective.
Of course, a veto that isn't overriden is just one more thorn in the side of Bush come election time, although it's unlikely to be an issue that will swing many voters.
... if the two groups did have an agreement, signed by both parties, it would seem pretty open and shut.
The question I have is: why? Why wouldn't Apple spin off some other company named Golden Delicious Music, or produce the iPod by Granny Smith or something? They pay their lawyers to come up with stuff like this, no?
Seems like Apple Computers knowingly breached a contract. Blatently. Seems like poor managerial decision making.
How many editors do you think the WSJ or the NYT have? Now, how many of those are accused of questionable editing?
Hence, the (likely).
Damn karma.
I make the LP joke, and you get moderated as funny. It ain't fair I tell ya.