Although the voting methods vary by state and county in the U.S. Where I live, (Phoenix, Arizona) we use paper ballots. They are initially counted with machines and then stored. If a hand recount is mandated by a court, the ballots can be looked at again. No Chads, no Diebold software issues. A solid paper trail.
>>> No version of Windows could run a current browser usably on this machine.
Are you sure? Windows 98 hacked to run Firefox would probably work too. I use a VM based on that combo for a disposable browser that fits on a small thumb drive.
I just finished reading the book today. I haven't tried implementing the stuff in it yet but I'm excited about some of it.
What I really liked about the book is how they specifically discussed how different browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7) react to the code and how to make their tricks work across them in spite of most issues. They show example renderings for the different browsers at intermediate stages of some of the design work and explain what's going on and what it will take to fix it for a specific browser (almost always IE).
I've read CSS books in the past that showed me some cool trick I wanted to do and then it took me forever to find (on my own) some way to get it to work across the browsers I was interested in. (or else I gave up trying)
The bad thing is, I'm only 97 percent sure that was written by some kind of randomizing post creating software. There are enough really weird people around that I have to consider the possibility that all of that made sense to somebody.
I play Battlefield 2142. I don't use a mic (Because I'm not sure I have the mental bandwidth to play the game and talk at the same time) but I can hear others talk over the built in voice channels.
Sometimes it is great. A good Squad Leader or Commander can give very granular orders quickly (i.e. "We'll defend here for another minute and then I'll order an attack on the enemy base, but I want Bob and Larry to stay here on defense.") or ("Look out Joe, there's a guy behind that dumpster with a shotgun!")
But when lots of people are talking about things happening far away from me, or some kid is constantly distracting everyone with non-game chat, it can be pretty useless.
Actually I have the most trouble with technical aspects of it really. Like some people with so much mic gain I can't understand anything they say, and others with so little I can't even tell they're talking.
After checking on the Approval method, which I hadn't seen before, I think I agree with you.
That or Borda might be better if for no other reason than this: people have become conditioned to throw a fit when they lose elections in recent years, and the complexities of IRV balloting would give them oh so much more excuse for throwing a fit even if none of the more unlikely results cases ever came up.
>>> This means that voting for someone can cause them to lose.
I call bogus on this. In an instant runoff election you can vote for your true preference first. If they don't win, you haven't wasted your vote because your second preference comes into play if no candidate has achieved a majority.
The example shown in the parent's link does not impress me. It shows all voters with the same primary preference also having the same secondary preference to create an unlikely scenario. It also pretends that the candidate who ultimately lost did so because she gained support. This is not true. She lost because another candidate LOST support, thereby putting her voters' second choice into play. The same thing would have happened if those primary votes had gone to some another candidate not listed in the example.
This manufactured quibble is no reason to stay with the current system of voting for the lesser of two evils every time.
>>> Surely the district didn't place a $5 million order with no means to pay for it?
True.
I can see it now.
School orders $5 mil in equip. Months later it shows up, but is delivered to wrong building. Someone who doesn't know what it's for accepts it and forgets about it. Paperwork is never processed. School calls IBM in a few more months and wants equipment. IBM says you've got it. School says, no, we don't. Project gets reevaluated and the money gets spent on something else.
Months (or years) later, the equipment is stolen, or sold as surplus at auction.
>>> I'm pretty sure that Russia still has quite a number of nuclear capable cruise missiles in their inventory. That so called ' shield ' is completely powerless to stop an attack of that nature. It's unlikely they'll even be seen until the first targets get vaporized. Russia knows this. The US knows it as does the EU.
So, if we accept all that as true, the Russian position is even more evil. It means they want themselves, or another hostile power, to be able to destroy EU cities without having to expend enough missiles to overcome a defensive system.
>>> The joke is that the "American Left" doesn't really exist, except if you're willing to distort the meaning of "left" to apply to things it doesn't apply to.
So what does 'left' mean, such that there is no 'American Left'? I understand the change in meaning of 'liberal' from classical liberalism, which was close to what we might call libertarianism today, into a more socialist form. But, it seems like you may be talking about something else.
The stories we are discussing seem to predate the AK-74, and the AK-74 isn't the likely source of the stories anyway.
The AK-74's round is.11 mm smaller in diameter and 6 mm shorter than the NATO round. This would probably make it capable of unreliable, inaccurate fire of NATA rounds at very best, if at all. Chambering an overdiameter bullet with a quarter-inch too long case in an AK-74 may be possible. But if the gun will even fire, it probably jams hard at that point because the cartridge had be deformed so much to allow the bolt to close and the overdiameter bullet would cause a huge rise in pressure when the gun was fired.
Designing a main battle weapon around the rare case where proper ammo is not available, but the enemies is, doesn't make much sense. If that's what the Soviets did, they fouled it up pretty nicely.
The brilliance of Soviet designers in providing for this often rumored one-way ammo compatibility in their favor is even more impressive when you consider that they set their specs (7mm by 39mm) years BEFORE the NATO ammo specs for assault rifles were created. Somehow they knew just what to do so that cartridges created by their enemies years later would fire in their guns, but not vice-versa.
At one point during the New Caprica bit I deleted an episode right in the middle of watching it and said I was done with the show for good. I gave in later and started watching again and it has never gotten as bad again, so I'm happy.
is that they are so open to interpretation. Or misinterpretation.
For instance I see one photo widely reputed to be a guy taking a leak into some bushes in San Francisco. If you look at the view shown by the submitter it looks plausible. But, go back one frame toward the east and then pan back to the figure by the bush. It now appears to be someone, possible a woman, who has turned toward the bushes to get a mirror or iPod out of the direct sunlight to use it in shadow. Then pan to her left and you see a police car approaching. Maybe he/she is trying to duck the cops and the whole thing has been recorded for posterity by the Google van.
A patent on the automobile was granted and many manufacturers were forced to pay up. Look up the "Selden Patent".
It was Henry Ford who finally broke the scheme by refusing to pay and putting his money into lawyers to attack the patent holder instead. He initially failed, but kept at it and won on appeal on the basis that the engine design Selden used in his design (Selden had built an engine, but never a car) was not the same design Ford and other car makers were using.
It's a misuse of government oversight to pursue cases like this.
Separately, it is a failure of government to do its most basic job when these same bureacracies will not actively deter illegal immigration through the powers they have been granted for just such purposes.
I agree that the associates at other stores typically know more about the electronics and computer equipment they sell than the ones at WalMart.
Strangely, I have found that this becomes a point in favor of shopping at WalMart!
If I go to a chain electronics store and ask any question about something I am thinking about buying, the associate tries to talk me into buying something more expensive and gives me bullshit reasons why the item I selected isn't any good. I assume there must be some kind of incentive program for them to do this, combined with a class in buzzwords and sales-pychology.
At WalMart they know where the stuff is and they'll show it to you. Whatever you want to buy is fine with them. If you bring it back they'll take it back without any guff either.
If Novell is able to improve their interoperability with Microsoft platforms that their paying customers actually use, that is a plus for them.
Nearly every knee-jerk hothead I've seen post about how they are going to boycott Novell from now on because they entered an agreement with Microsoft has also said something to the effect that they weren't buying Novell products anyway.
If this holds true, then the 'backlash' of OSS zealots against Novell will not make much real difference.
If the 'backlash' actually does hurt Novell, then it will serve as an example to all for-profit companies that using OSS is a bad business decision because it injects an element of social danger.
That's why when I play a game it's so I can do something I don't do in real life (driving extremely fast, shooting people, blowing things up, driving fast and shooting people while running over other people, commanding a group and having them kill people and blow things up for me, etc).
p.s.(I forgot to mention flying around while shooting people and blowing things up.)
Slashdot Mirror
Me too. It may be that or the dust bin for us old Netware types.
You are correct sir.
Although the voting methods vary by state and county in the U.S. Where I live, (Phoenix, Arizona) we use paper ballots. They are initially counted with machines and then stored. If a hand recount is mandated by a court, the ballots can be looked at again. No Chads, no Diebold software issues. A solid paper trail.
Not that it will help, but read the Sci-Fi book "Replay".
It's a great book and the protaganist faces a similar fate.
>>> No version of Windows could run a current browser usably on this machine.
Are you sure? Windows 98 hacked to run Firefox would probably work too. I use a VM based on that combo for a disposable browser that fits on a small thumb drive.
I just finished reading the book today. I haven't tried implementing the stuff in it yet but I'm excited about some of it.
What I really liked about the book is how they specifically discussed how different browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7) react to the code and how to make their tricks work across them in spite of most issues. They show example renderings for the different browsers at intermediate stages of some of the design work and explain what's going on and what it will take to fix it for a specific browser (almost always IE).
I've read CSS books in the past that showed me some cool trick I wanted to do and then it took me forever to find (on my own) some way to get it to work across the browsers I was interested in. (or else I gave up trying)
The bad thing is, I'm only 97 percent sure that was written by some kind of randomizing post creating software. There are enough really weird people around that I have to consider the possibility that all of that made sense to somebody.
I play Battlefield 2142. I don't use a mic (Because I'm not sure I have the mental bandwidth to play the game and talk at the same time) but I can hear others talk over the built in voice channels.
Sometimes it is great. A good Squad Leader or Commander can give very granular orders quickly (i.e. "We'll defend here for another minute and then I'll order an attack on the enemy base, but I want Bob and Larry to stay here on defense.") or ("Look out Joe, there's a guy behind that dumpster with a shotgun!")
But when lots of people are talking about things happening far away from me, or some kid is constantly distracting everyone with non-game chat, it can be pretty useless.
Actually I have the most trouble with technical aspects of it really. Like some people with so much mic gain I can't understand anything they say, and others with so little I can't even tell they're talking.
>>> Personally, I prefer approval voting.
After checking on the Approval method, which I hadn't seen before, I think I agree with you.
That or Borda might be better if for no other reason than this: people have become conditioned to throw a fit when they lose elections in recent years, and the complexities of IRV balloting would give them oh so much more excuse for throwing a fit even if none of the more unlikely results cases ever came up.
>>> This means that voting for someone can cause them to lose.
I call bogus on this. In an instant runoff election you can vote for your true preference first. If they don't win, you haven't wasted your vote because your second preference comes into play if no candidate has achieved a majority.
The example shown in the parent's link does not impress me. It shows all voters with the same primary preference also having the same secondary preference to create an unlikely scenario. It also pretends that the candidate who ultimately lost did so because she gained support. This is not true. She lost because another candidate LOST support, thereby putting her voters' second choice into play. The same thing would have happened if those primary votes had gone to some another candidate not listed in the example.
This manufactured quibble is no reason to stay with the current system of voting for the lesser of two evils every time.
>>> Surely the district didn't place a $5 million order with no means to pay for it?
True.
I can see it now.
School orders $5 mil in equip. Months later it shows up, but is delivered to wrong building. Someone who doesn't know what it's for accepts it and forgets about it. Paperwork is never processed. School calls IBM in a few more months and wants equipment. IBM says you've got it. School says, no, we don't. Project gets reevaluated and the money gets spent on something else.
Months (or years) later, the equipment is stolen, or sold as surplus at auction.
I wonder if I could hire these guys to make me Supreme Commander?
>>> I'm pretty sure that Russia still has quite a number of nuclear capable cruise missiles in their inventory. That so called ' shield ' is completely powerless to stop an attack of that nature. It's unlikely they'll even be seen until the first targets get vaporized. Russia knows this. The US knows it as does the EU.
So, if we accept all that as true, the Russian position is even more evil. It means they want themselves, or another hostile power, to be able to destroy EU cities without having to expend enough missiles to overcome a defensive system.
There is no acceptable explanation for that.
There is a spectrum of mainstream thought in the U.S.
The Democratic Party's positions put them on the more socialist side of that spectrum.
This is why they are often called the 'American Left.'
The fact that even more socialist positions exist than the ones Democrats espouse does not put them on the other end of the spectrum.
>>> The joke is that the "American Left" doesn't really exist, except if you're willing to distort the meaning of "left" to apply to things it doesn't apply to.
So what does 'left' mean, such that there is no 'American Left'? I understand the change in meaning of 'liberal' from classical liberalism, which was close to what we might call libertarianism today, into a more socialist form. But, it seems like you may be talking about something else.
The stories we are discussing seem to predate the AK-74, and the AK-74 isn't the likely source of the stories anyway.
.11 mm smaller in diameter and 6 mm shorter than the NATO round. This would probably make it capable of unreliable, inaccurate fire of NATA rounds at very best, if at all. Chambering an overdiameter bullet with a quarter-inch too long case in an AK-74 may be possible. But if the gun will even fire, it probably jams hard at that point because the cartridge had be deformed so much to allow the bolt to close and the overdiameter bullet would cause a huge rise in pressure when the gun was fired.
The AK-74's round is
Designing a main battle weapon around the rare case where proper ammo is not available, but the enemies is, doesn't make much sense. If that's what the Soviets did, they fouled it up pretty nicely.
The brilliance of Soviet designers in providing for this often rumored one-way ammo compatibility in their favor is even more impressive when you consider that they set their specs (7mm by 39mm) years BEFORE the NATO ammo specs for assault rifles were created. Somehow they knew just what to do so that cartridges created by their enemies years later would fire in their guns, but not vice-versa.
>>> Calling the Democrats the "American left" is like calling the clitoris the "female penis"
Could you please explain what your sig means?
It will help me decide whether I like you or not.
There are some episodes saved that I haven't watched yet, I admit.
Not because I don't want to, it's just that I have to coordinate it with my spouse and we both have to be in the mood, and all that.
At one point during the New Caprica bit I deleted an episode right in the middle of watching it and said I was done with the show for good. I gave in later and started watching again and it has never gotten as bad again, so I'm happy.
is that they are so open to interpretation. Or misinterpretation.
For instance I see one photo widely reputed to be a guy taking a leak into some bushes in San Francisco. If you look at the view shown by the submitter it looks plausible. But, go back one frame toward the east and then pan back to the figure by the bush. It now appears to be someone, possible a woman, who has turned toward the bushes to get a mirror or iPod out of the direct sunlight to use it in shadow. Then pan to her left and you see a police car approaching. Maybe he/she is trying to duck the cops and the whole thing has been recorded for posterity by the Google van.
Actually there is a precedent for cars.
A patent on the automobile was granted and many manufacturers were forced to pay up. Look up the "Selden Patent".
It was Henry Ford who finally broke the scheme by refusing to pay and putting his money into lawyers to attack the patent holder instead. He initially failed, but kept at it and won on appeal on the basis that the engine design Selden used in his design (Selden had built an engine, but never a car) was not the same design Ford and other car makers were using.
I agree.
It's a misuse of government oversight to pursue cases like this.
Separately, it is a failure of government to do its most basic job when these same bureacracies will not actively deter illegal immigration through the powers they have been granted for just such purposes.
I agree that the associates at other stores typically know more about the electronics and computer equipment they sell than the ones at WalMart.
Strangely, I have found that this becomes a point in favor of shopping at WalMart!
If I go to a chain electronics store and ask any question about something I am thinking about buying, the associate tries to talk me into buying something more expensive and gives me bullshit reasons why the item I selected isn't any good. I assume there must be some kind of incentive program for them to do this, combined with a class in buzzwords and sales-pychology.
At WalMart they know where the stuff is and they'll show it to you. Whatever you want to buy is fine with them. If you bring it back they'll take it back without any guff either.
If Novell is able to improve their interoperability with Microsoft platforms that their paying customers actually use, that is a plus for them.
Nearly every knee-jerk hothead I've seen post about how they are going to boycott Novell from now on because they entered an agreement with Microsoft has also said something to the effect that they weren't buying Novell products anyway.
If this holds true, then the 'backlash' of OSS zealots against Novell will not make much real difference.
If the 'backlash' actually does hurt Novell, then it will serve as an example to all for-profit companies that using OSS is a bad business decision because it injects an element of social danger.
Exactly.
That's why when I play a game it's so I can do something I don't do in real life (driving extremely fast, shooting people, blowing things up, driving fast and shooting people while running over other people, commanding a group and having them kill people and blow things up for me, etc).
p.s.(I forgot to mention flying around while shooting people and blowing things up.)