Yes, it elects my representatives and my senators. But they don't know if I voted for them, or if I voted for the other guy/gal. The election workers don't know which candidate I voted for. Why should an exit poll taker know who I voted for?
For the 2000 and 2004 elections, I was in a town of 25,000 people. I knew the exit poll people, they were people I worked with, went to church with, see at the gym, etc. I didn't NEED to tell them my name.
As for lying to them, I don't do that, but there's no reason why I can't, or shouldn't. Its a poll. Its going to be used for talking shills to GUESS at the results and pat themselves on the back if they're right. Assuming, for the moment, that I was interested in talking to them, why shouldn't I lie to them? Maybe having "Mickey Mouse" winning an election based on exit polls MIGHT, just MIGHT, point out the fundamental flaws in taking exit polls to be fact and evidence of voting fraud.
You want to prevent voting fraud? Great. Wonderful goal. Convince everyone to use voting machines that show you who you voted for, AND provide a human-readable reciept to both you and one thats displayed through a window and then dropped in a tamper-proof (as much as such thing can exist, anyway) box after you certifiy that the machine recorded your vote correctly, and that it matches the reciept provided to you. Don't rely on exit polling to provide your "evidence" of voting fraud.
For what its worth, I thought the exit polls were flawed long before any of the party hacks started blabbering. Say I vote for candidate X. When asked, I tell the exit-poll person that I voted for candidate Y, or even for candidate Z. Why is the exit poll "correct" then, when based on a partial sampling, and possibly incorrect information to begin with?
I've never done that, but there is NO reason I, or anyone else, couldn't.
The issues with electronically rigging an election will never be solved by exit polling a subset of the voting population, they'll be solved by providing a human-readable paper trail presented to the voter AND to the election officials.
I think it did change, at least in this respect, as the 2000 election did get more people to vote, and more people in categories that didn't vote much in the past.
One of those groups is the younger vote, and the sentiment that the media needs to shut the hell up is pretty common among that group.
G.W. Bush may or may not have broken laws (thats a separate debate, not really suitable for slashdot) but you're deluded if you think he's going to do any time in prison for anything he might or might not have done as president.
IF the republican party loses control over both houses of congress (I doubt they will, there are too many stupid voters swayed by fear), he might be impeached. He might even resign. But he won't do any prison time.
Can't speak for anyone else, but I refuse to talk to exit poll people. My vote is my own damned business. And I've seen many, many people tell the exit pollers to go jump off a cliff (or other not-so-polite words to that effect).
Maybe I just never understood why, when the exit polls said one thing, and the actual counted results show something else, it MUST be the counted results that were wrong, and not the exit polls that had incomplete data in the first place.
That said, I'm convinced there were shennanigans from both sides in 2000 and 2004 -- but taking exit polls as fact is fundamentally flawed.
If it means getting rid of everything, well, you do have that choice. You might not like the sacrifice it'd entail, but don't complain about having no choice.
I can usually find north, though I like to think I have a built in Inertial Guidance System rather than something as simple and mundane as a gyroscope and compass.
I understand exactly what you're trying to say -- its the same thing I'm saying. People are dumb. They're not going to learn. And they won't change their habits.
Where we disagree is that I don't feel the need to go on a crusade to protect people from themselves.
The slippery slope argument is what naturally follows when someone doesn't feel the need to stop the media companies. Its rubbish, because it assumes that everyone is unwilling to sacrifice any convenience or pleasure for principles.
All your points have some merit, if you subscribe to the idea that you HAVE to buy into the entertainment industry.
Once you realize that you don't have the NEED for mass-produced drivel, and have the WILL to stay away from it, then it comes down to the fact that buying entertainment = giving up some control. Then you can make the choice between "entertainment" and "control".
You can argue slippery-slope all you want, but the fact remains that you ALWAYS have a choice -- the catch is you have to be willing to sacrifice something to gain something else.
You've also got to avoid being sent to die in a pointless foreign war, Drop the fear-mongering about a draft, we don't have one, and its not coming back anytime soon.
drowning in a gulf coast city, If you choose to live there, then you deal with the consequences of living below sea level on a coast with a history of hurricanes.
or dying of disease after the EPA lies about air quality, The EPA can only lie about what was told to them. If they told the truth as it was told them it'd still likely be full of lies that the EPA was told.
among other dangers. Life has danger. You can't escape risk, so you might as well accept that its there, and continue living life instead of living in fear.
The far-left chased Lieberman out of the party because he wasn't "liberal enough". They continue to alienate moderate democrats with their candidates and rhetoric. It goes without saying that the right is going to hate Hillary, but a sizeable percentage of democrats won't vote for her either.
So what? Do you get some kind of prize if the person you vote for wins?
My point is they have 0 chance of winning. Sadly, voting for a write-in candidate IS wasting your vote. Not that it should be that way, but thats the way it is right now.
If only fewer people decided they needed special interest groups to file class-action lawsuits that only benefit the lawyers. And yes, the EFF falls into that category. Even when they win class-action lawsuits, they don't have a real impact on companies, and the indiviual consumer doesn't benefit (oh, a voucher for another crappy cd, thank goodness the EFF stood up for me) and the ONLY people who gain anything are the lawyers.
If you don't like the way some software works, fine, don't use it. NOTHING forces you to listen to music. NOTHING forces you to watch movies. Because of that, there's NOTHING that justifies congressional action or lawsuits from the EFF.
In this instance, personal responsibility = if you don't like it vote with your pocketbooks and use something else. There's no need for lawsuits that benefit no one but the lawyers.
It comes down to this: Whining to the EFF about entertainment companies is stupid. There is no "right" to entertainment. Nothing forces you to buy, steal, or listen to/watch music or movies. If you don't like the way the companies are run, don't buy their products. You don't have to go whining demanding congressional action or EFF lawsuits about it.
I don't care about MPEG4 vs MPG2 vs MS DRM'd video streams for this purpose. I just timeshift stuff, I don't keep it, burn it, or care about handing it to friends. I don't care about watching video on multiple machines, or streaming it to my laptop in some hotel somewhere.
MythTV may have its benefits for some people, but don't call them "obvious" since some people just flat out don't care one way or the other about them. What is an obvious benefit for someone with 8 tvs in their house, each with a PC attached, isn't necessarily a benefit for someone who prefers to keep the TV in the living room, and out of the rest of the house, and it sure isn't an "obvious" benefit.
Responses like yours are part of the reason that many people (outside the slashdot crowd) don't like, trust, or care about "open" software. They see the people pushing open source as snobby, pushy fanboys who look down on everyone they don't see as an "equal". Until the open source community is more welcoming to noobs, and drop the damned holier-than-thou attitudes, you're not going to make much progress.
There are write in candidates, sure. But they have less chance of winning than I have of jumping over the moon.
Sadly, at the moment, candidates not belonging to one of the two main parties don't have a chance of being elected. The only times that has changed in this country is when one party or the other falls apart. Its about time for one of the two parties to completely implode, the only real question is which party will go first. The far-left is already wreaking havoc in the Democratic party, and the fundamentalist-christian-right is causing problems in the Republican party.
One thing is for sure, if you can avoid being blinded by hatred of one side or the other, the next 2-4 years are going to be damned entertaining.
Translation: You're complaining about a windows program's behavior. I'm going to spew a lot, then reveal that I'm not even talking about the windows version of that program, but do so in a way that tries to imply I still know what I'm talking about.
READ. Re-read until you comprehend. If you don't know anything directly relating to whats being asked, don't spew your opinion about something different.
Unless estate holders release it early. Or the author and holder of the copyright declares in his/her will that his/her work be released into the public domain upon his death, etc.
Just because its not common (or likely) doesn't mean it can't happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it elects my representatives and my senators. But they don't know if I voted for them, or if I voted for the other guy/gal. The election workers don't know which candidate I voted for. Why should an exit poll taker know who I voted for?
For the 2000 and 2004 elections, I was in a town of 25,000 people. I knew the exit poll people, they were people I worked with, went to church with, see at the gym, etc. I didn't NEED to tell them my name.
As for lying to them, I don't do that, but there's no reason why I can't, or shouldn't. Its a poll. Its going to be used for talking shills to GUESS at the results and pat themselves on the back if they're right. Assuming, for the moment, that I was interested in talking to them, why shouldn't I lie to them? Maybe having "Mickey Mouse" winning an election based on exit polls MIGHT, just MIGHT, point out the fundamental flaws in taking exit polls to be fact and evidence of voting fraud.
You want to prevent voting fraud? Great. Wonderful goal. Convince everyone to use voting machines that show you who you voted for, AND provide a human-readable reciept to both you and one thats displayed through a window and then dropped in a tamper-proof (as much as such thing can exist, anyway) box after you certifiy that the machine recorded your vote correctly, and that it matches the reciept provided to you. Don't rely on exit polling to provide your "evidence" of voting fraud.
For what its worth, I thought the exit polls were flawed long before any of the party hacks started blabbering. Say I vote for candidate X. When asked, I tell the exit-poll person that I voted for candidate Y, or even for candidate Z. Why is the exit poll "correct" then, when based on a partial sampling, and possibly incorrect information to begin with?
I've never done that, but there is NO reason I, or anyone else, couldn't.
The issues with electronically rigging an election will never be solved by exit polling a subset of the voting population, they'll be solved by providing a human-readable paper trail presented to the voter AND to the election officials.
I think it did change, at least in this respect, as the 2000 election did get more people to vote, and more people in categories that didn't vote much in the past. One of those groups is the younger vote, and the sentiment that the media needs to shut the hell up is pretty common among that group.
Choose your Adventure books got me addicted to post-it-notes.
G.W. Bush may or may not have broken laws (thats a separate debate, not really suitable for slashdot) but you're deluded if you think he's going to do any time in prison for anything he might or might not have done as president.
IF the republican party loses control over both houses of congress (I doubt they will, there are too many stupid voters swayed by fear), he might be impeached. He might even resign. But he won't do any prison time.
Can't speak for anyone else, but I refuse to talk to exit poll people. My vote is my own damned business. And I've seen many, many people tell the exit pollers to go jump off a cliff (or other not-so-polite words to that effect).
Maybe I just never understood why, when the exit polls said one thing, and the actual counted results show something else, it MUST be the counted results that were wrong, and not the exit polls that had incomplete data in the first place.
That said, I'm convinced there were shennanigans from both sides in 2000 and 2004 -- but taking exit polls as fact is fundamentally flawed.
If it means getting rid of everything, well, you do have that choice. You might not like the sacrifice it'd entail, but don't complain about having no choice.
Actually there's more to an Inertial Guidance System than just a gyroscope or compass.
I can usually find north, though I like to think I have a built in Inertial Guidance System rather than something as simple and mundane as a gyroscope and compass.
I understand exactly what you're trying to say -- its the same thing I'm saying. People are dumb. They're not going to learn. And they won't change their habits.
Where we disagree is that I don't feel the need to go on a crusade to protect people from themselves.
The slippery slope argument is what naturally follows when someone doesn't feel the need to stop the media companies. Its rubbish, because it assumes that everyone is unwilling to sacrifice any convenience or pleasure for principles.
Well, apparently we're the only two that do that. Everyone else "NEEDS" their mass-produced entertainment-drivel.
All your points have some merit, if you subscribe to the idea that you HAVE to buy into the entertainment industry.
Once you realize that you don't have the NEED for mass-produced drivel, and have the WILL to stay away from it, then it comes down to the fact that buying entertainment = giving up some control. Then you can make the choice between "entertainment" and "control".
You can argue slippery-slope all you want, but the fact remains that you ALWAYS have a choice -- the catch is you have to be willing to sacrifice something to gain something else.
My point is that entertainment shouldn't be decided in the courts in the first place.
You have the option to NOT buy entertainment products. You may not LIKE that choice, but it does exist.
There is no benefit. Vote third party, sure, but not for write-ins that did't even have the clout to make it on the ballot in the first place.
You've also got to avoid being sent to die in a pointless foreign war,
Drop the fear-mongering about a draft, we don't have one, and its not coming back anytime soon.
drowning in a gulf coast city,
If you choose to live there, then you deal with the consequences of living below sea level on a coast with a history of hurricanes.
or dying of disease after the EPA lies about air quality,
The EPA can only lie about what was told to them. If they told the truth as it was told them it'd still likely be full of lies that the EPA was told.
among other dangers.
Life has danger. You can't escape risk, so you might as well accept that its there, and continue living life instead of living in fear.
The far-left chased Lieberman out of the party because he wasn't "liberal enough". They continue to alienate moderate democrats with their candidates and rhetoric. It goes without saying that the right is going to hate Hillary, but a sizeable percentage of democrats won't vote for her either.
So what? Do you get some kind of prize if the person you vote for wins?
My point is they have 0 chance of winning. Sadly, voting for a write-in candidate IS wasting your vote. Not that it should be that way, but thats the way it is right now.
If only fewer people decided they needed special interest groups to file class-action lawsuits that only benefit the lawyers. And yes, the EFF falls into that category. Even when they win class-action lawsuits, they don't have a real impact on companies, and the indiviual consumer doesn't benefit (oh, a voucher for another crappy cd, thank goodness the EFF stood up for me) and the ONLY people who gain anything are the lawyers.
If you don't like the way some software works, fine, don't use it. NOTHING forces you to listen to music. NOTHING forces you to watch movies. Because of that, there's NOTHING that justifies congressional action or lawsuits from the EFF.
In this instance, personal responsibility = if you don't like it vote with your pocketbooks and use something else. There's no need for lawsuits that benefit no one but the lawyers.
It comes down to this: Whining to the EFF about entertainment companies is stupid. There is no "right" to entertainment. Nothing forces you to buy, steal, or listen to/watch music or movies. If you don't like the way the companies are run, don't buy their products. You don't have to go whining demanding congressional action or EFF lawsuits about it.
Speaking only for myself:
I don't care about MPEG4 vs MPG2 vs MS DRM'd video streams for this purpose. I just timeshift stuff, I don't keep it, burn it, or care about handing it to friends. I don't care about watching video on multiple machines, or streaming it to my laptop in some hotel somewhere.
MythTV may have its benefits for some people, but don't call them "obvious" since some people just flat out don't care one way or the other about them. What is an obvious benefit for someone with 8 tvs in their house, each with a PC attached, isn't necessarily a benefit for someone who prefers to keep the TV in the living room, and out of the rest of the house, and it sure isn't an "obvious" benefit.
Responses like yours are part of the reason that many people (outside the slashdot crowd) don't like, trust, or care about "open" software. They see the people pushing open source as snobby, pushy fanboys who look down on everyone they don't see as an "equal". Until the open source community is more welcoming to noobs, and drop the damned holier-than-thou attitudes, you're not going to make much progress.
There are write in candidates, sure. But they have less chance of winning than I have of jumping over the moon.
Sadly, at the moment, candidates not belonging to one of the two main parties don't have a chance of being elected. The only times that has changed in this country is when one party or the other falls apart. Its about time for one of the two parties to completely implode, the only real question is which party will go first. The far-left is already wreaking havoc in the Democratic party, and the fundamentalist-christian-right is causing problems in the Republican party.
One thing is for sure, if you can avoid being blinded by hatred of one side or the other, the next 2-4 years are going to be damned entertaining.
Translation: You're complaining about a windows program's behavior. I'm going to spew a lot, then reveal that I'm not even talking about the windows version of that program, but do so in a way that tries to imply I still know what I'm talking about.
READ. Re-read until you comprehend. If you don't know anything directly relating to whats being asked, don't spew your opinion about something different.
Maybe this is a wake up call that the EFF is not the be-all-and-end-all. Stand up for YOURSELF, don't rely on others to do it for you.
Oh, wait. Personal responsibility is dead. Continue whining about how you hate something but Special-Interest-Group-X won't do anything about it.
See the second line of my post. It may not be likely, but it IS POSSIBLE.
Unless estate holders release it early. Or the author and holder of the copyright declares in his/her will that his/her work be released into the public domain upon his death, etc.
Just because its not common (or likely) doesn't mean it can't happen.