It's sad that I'm in the frigging military and my hours are better. My hours were only close to being that bad last time I was in the desert, and was working 5 pm to 5 am for 4 days, getting a day off, and then doing another 4 days of 5 to 5. But I got paid lots for that deployment.
My opinion is, you get paid for the hours you work. If it's a 9 to 5 job, then you work from 9 to 5 and you get paid for 9 to 5. If they make you stay longer they pay you more or compensate you somehow. Failing to pay a person for the work they do is called stealing. Far as I'm concerned, EA is stealing from the people who work for it. If I had any desire whatsoever to play a crappy formulaic EA game, stories like this would make me not feel bad about getting that game in a less then legal manner.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/200 4-10-22/pols_feature18.html/ Travis County election officials have responded to complaints that voters casting straight-party Democratic ballots are discovering, when performing a final check of their ballots, that their votes for president have been changed from Kerry/Edwards to Bush/Cheney. The officials say that, after trying and failing to replicate the problem on its eSlate voting machines, they have concluded the vote changes are due to voter error rather than mechanical failure.
I did a search for "eSlate voting machine" and found the website of the company that makes it. Apparently the company name is "Hart InterCivic". They have a demo on their website where you can try out the eSlate, though I don't know how true to life it is. I really don't like the interface at all, and would prefer a system with a keypad, where you punch in a number on the keypad that corresponds to a choice of candidate (e.g. "1. Bush/Cheney 2. Kerry/Edwards), and their system seems needlessly complicated, but maybe that's just me. Well, I tried out the demo voting. Attempting to duplicate the problem, I voted for "George Washington", the second presidential choice, instead of the first choice, "Susan B Anthony". I then proceeded to check the box for the other positions. When you have selected a candidate for each office by hitting 'Enter' for each one, it automatically takes you to the finish screen. If you hit "Cast Ballot" at this point, the process is done, and it's all good. However, if you hit Enter again like you have been for all the previous choices, then you go back to your presidential candidate, which it shows as being selected. Hit Enter again, and it takes you back to the finish screen. However, for President it now says "No Selections", which, as a side note, I find ironically appropriate when applied to this election, but that is neither here nor there. Anyway, select 'Cast Ballot' at that point and you didn't vote for anybody for President. So I do see where there could be a problem there, if people weren't paying attention or got confused by the technology. Seeing as how I frequently have to help my coworkers with things like taking screenshots, saving files, finding the files they saved, and so forth, I can definitely see getting confused by the technology as being a problem.
I do have a suggestion, however. Have the voting machine companies prepare a brief, simple, 5-15 minute video tutorial on how to operate the e-voting machine. Set up an area at the polling place to have groups of twenty or so watch it before voting, or having it playing on monitors next to the lines people will be waiting in to vote. This should hopefully minimize or eliminate most of the user error problems with electronic voting, although it doesn't adress issues like corrupt e-voting machine companies (*cough*DIEBOLD*cough*)or electronic manipulation of the vote count or the very real need for a paper trail. When you go to the ATM, you get a receipt. You should DEFINITELY be able to get a receipt for you fricking vote.
eSlate voting machine: http://www.hartintercivic.com/solutions/eslate.htm l/
No, not that weed.
If NASA is looking for good hardy plants to use to produce oxygen, they ought to look at some of the plants commonly thought of as weeds. Weeds seem to be pretty hardy and persistent, and I think some of them can even be beneficial. Don't dandelions have nutritious content?
NASA also ought to look at very leafy plants, like lettuce or rhubarb.
Or just give all their money to Burt Rutan, I'm cool with that too. Anybody else see a definite similarity between him and the freewheeling independent entrepenuer (sp?) types that, in science fiction, tend to be the ones who do the real work of getting mankind into space? I'd have to go look through my sci-fi library again to make sure, but it certainly seems like a familiar archetype.
It's a case of history writing itself through fiction. Somebody creates a work of fiction about the future, and somebody else decides to do what they can to make it reality. I had an old poster somewhere of all the Enterprise-named vessels, and one was a space pleasure liner, the equivalent of a spaceborne cruise ship. History these days tends to write itself.
Those are... Christian games. In fact, I'd wager that "Fullarmorstudios" refers to "The full armor of God", which is a Biblical reference I'm not going to dig up because I'm Pagan now.
Look at it, games like "The Walls of Jericho" and "Manna Munchers", I think they're trying for 'good', 'clean', and 'wholesome' games while also trying to avoid getting pegged as a Christian game studio. Those are the kind of games I saw in Christian bookstores when I was growing up for $40.
Here's hoping they'll fail miserably.
Slashdot Mirror
It's sad that I'm in the frigging military and my hours are better. My hours were only close to being that bad last time I was in the desert, and was working 5 pm to 5 am for 4 days, getting a day off, and then doing another 4 days of 5 to 5. But I got paid lots for that deployment. My opinion is, you get paid for the hours you work. If it's a 9 to 5 job, then you work from 9 to 5 and you get paid for 9 to 5. If they make you stay longer they pay you more or compensate you somehow. Failing to pay a person for the work they do is called stealing. Far as I'm concerned, EA is stealing from the people who work for it. If I had any desire whatsoever to play a crappy formulaic EA game, stories like this would make me not feel bad about getting that game in a less then legal manner.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/200 4-10-22/pols_feature18.html/
m l/
Travis County election officials have responded to complaints that voters casting straight-party Democratic ballots are discovering, when performing a final check of their ballots, that their votes for president have been changed from Kerry/Edwards to Bush/Cheney. The officials say that, after trying and failing to replicate the problem on its eSlate voting machines, they have concluded the vote changes are due to voter error rather than mechanical failure.
I did a search for "eSlate voting machine" and found the website of the company that makes it. Apparently the company name is "Hart InterCivic". They have a demo on their website where you can try out the eSlate, though I don't know how true to life it is. I really don't like the interface at all, and would prefer a system with a keypad, where you punch in a number on the keypad that corresponds to a choice of candidate (e.g. "1. Bush/Cheney 2. Kerry/Edwards), and their system seems needlessly complicated, but maybe that's just me. Well, I tried out the demo voting. Attempting to duplicate the problem, I voted for "George Washington", the second presidential choice, instead of the first choice, "Susan B Anthony". I then proceeded to check the box for the other positions. When you have selected a candidate for each office by hitting 'Enter' for each one, it automatically takes you to the finish screen. If you hit "Cast Ballot" at this point, the process is done, and it's all good. However, if you hit Enter again like you have been for all the previous choices, then you go back to your presidential candidate, which it shows as being selected. Hit Enter again, and it takes you back to the finish screen. However, for President it now says "No Selections", which, as a side note, I find ironically appropriate when applied to this election, but that is neither here nor there. Anyway, select 'Cast Ballot' at that point and you didn't vote for anybody for President. So I do see where there could be a problem there, if people weren't paying attention or got confused by the technology. Seeing as how I frequently have to help my coworkers with things like taking screenshots, saving files, finding the files they saved, and so forth, I can definitely see getting confused by the technology as being a problem.
I do have a suggestion, however. Have the voting machine companies prepare a brief, simple, 5-15 minute video tutorial on how to operate the e-voting machine. Set up an area at the polling place to have groups of twenty or so watch it before voting, or having it playing on monitors next to the lines people will be waiting in to vote. This should hopefully minimize or eliminate most of the user error problems with electronic voting, although it doesn't adress issues like corrupt e-voting machine companies (*cough*DIEBOLD*cough*)or electronic manipulation of the vote count or the very real need for a paper trail. When you go to the ATM, you get a receipt. You should DEFINITELY be able to get a receipt for you fricking vote.
eSlate voting machine: http://www.hartintercivic.com/solutions/eslate.ht
No, not that weed. If NASA is looking for good hardy plants to use to produce oxygen, they ought to look at some of the plants commonly thought of as weeds. Weeds seem to be pretty hardy and persistent, and I think some of them can even be beneficial. Don't dandelions have nutritious content? NASA also ought to look at very leafy plants, like lettuce or rhubarb. Or just give all their money to Burt Rutan, I'm cool with that too. Anybody else see a definite similarity between him and the freewheeling independent entrepenuer (sp?) types that, in science fiction, tend to be the ones who do the real work of getting mankind into space? I'd have to go look through my sci-fi library again to make sure, but it certainly seems like a familiar archetype.
It's a case of history writing itself through fiction. Somebody creates a work of fiction about the future, and somebody else decides to do what they can to make it reality. I had an old poster somewhere of all the Enterprise-named vessels, and one was a space pleasure liner, the equivalent of a spaceborne cruise ship. History these days tends to write itself.
Those are... Christian games. In fact, I'd wager that "Fullarmorstudios" refers to "The full armor of God", which is a Biblical reference I'm not going to dig up because I'm Pagan now. Look at it, games like "The Walls of Jericho" and "Manna Munchers", I think they're trying for 'good', 'clean', and 'wholesome' games while also trying to avoid getting pegged as a Christian game studio. Those are the kind of games I saw in Christian bookstores when I was growing up for $40. Here's hoping they'll fail miserably.
I'm smart, but I'm way too dumb to figure out how to use that.
That's what I do too, but mostly because I'm poor. My PS2 was a gift.