Perhaps not a central argument, but part of the platform. Specifically the first and last paragraphs of that section, regarding fraud.
Of course, the problems of plurality voting methods still work to ensure that virtually no one in the USA will take a "third party" seriously enough to vote for them, no matter how good the ideas. You'll generally see good ideas for electoral reform, ballot access reform, etc, in just about every minor party...but because those parties themselves are marginalized, so are the ideas. When groups as ideologically diverse as the Green, Libertarian, and Constitution parties do agree on something, you'd think someone would take notice.
On the contrary, Geo. Washington warned against partisan politics. (However, given that everyone is going to realize the economies of scale that go with joining other like-minded people, it was pretty naive to think they wouldn't form.) Also, the mathematical study of voting systems was just starting to be explored during their time. (Condorcet was a contemporary of the Founders.) I don't think the Founders realized that the voting system itself was inherently problematic.
I've seriously considered running. You can bet I'd be seeking endorsement from the EFF, too. Too many pols have forgotten that government is supposed to be people-serving, not self-serving!
Actually the number would be over 8000 Representatives - the Constitution specifies a 1:30k ratio. I think 1000 Representatives would be a good compromise, though.
It's also an example of why the US needs more than just a Left and a Right. There is room for more than two parties - politics is not one-dimensional! But as long as the voting system inherently (through Duverger's Law) narrows the perception to "two major parties" we'll never have a truly healthy system that requires dialog, debate, and concensus-building.
There you go! Add that feature, and a usercss=username parameter for the URL. Instantly view slashdot with the CSS provided by any of the contest entrants. That would sidestep the slashdotting of the designers' sites that someone mentioned elsewhere.
My hope is that I could do something like transforming #3f3f3f to #000000 with 25% transparency, #aaaaaa to #000000 with 67% transparency, etc. - adjusting the base edge color when it's not black, obviously. The "shade" level between the edge color and the background color ought to translate directly to alpha. Even if I have to manually specify what the edge and background colors are (which is easy enough with a color selector) it would be faster than doing it truly "manually". It just has to find the "softened" edges and work inward until it finds the pure edge color, or the color begins to shift away from the "axis" between the two. Obviously I'm not a graphics designer, because I don't even know what terms to use to describe this.
And that's exactly the problem. I have no skills. Most of the icons were simple scaledowns of source images I no longer have. Most do have a defined "edge" color though. I just need a way to essentially say "for all transitional shades from white to X around the edges, change them to color X with an appropriate amount of transparency". But how to do that?
I second that! I experimented with #f8f8f8 (and variations around it like #f8eeff, etc) and while you'd think it would be too subtle, in fact it cut eye strain quite a bit. That's just one subjective anecdote, but hey.
Yeah, I'd love to see that too. I'm in the middle of trying to figure out how to convert some of my ancient (1990s) web GIFs into PNGs with proper alpha-based anti-aliasing. Any tips on automating this would be great.
Absolutely. My wife and I went back to the good ol' envelope system to keep us on our budget. Every week we withdraw an allotment of cash. We write checks to pay bills. Debit scares me. Credit may not be evil, but I'd rather avoid it just the same.
I've found I like XFCE better than KDE or Gnome, so I installed xubuntu-desktop. I haven't quite figured out how to edit the menus yet, so I'm tolerating the default arrangement.
The exact same argument applies to the media (**AA) corps too (IMHO, IANAL). If I'm licensed to watch/hear your product, then replacing the physical medium or getting it in a different format should be a very nominal (pennies!) charge since I can show that I've got a license for the product. If I'm buying a copy of the product for my own, then how do they have any right to restrict what I do with my copy for my own use?
For the type of stuff I'd use a cameraphone's camera for, a 50 kilopixel image would be sufficient. If I want a decent picture, I'll use a real camera with a hint of optical quality.
Both "major" parties have a vested interest in protecting the status quo. Nearly all states went to that sort of "all or nothing" EC allocation in the early mid-19th century, you know. It's not like partisanship is a new phenomenon. Geo. Washington warned us it.
We need a system that reduces the dependency on partisanship. I don't have anything against partisanship, per se, but I do not like some of its effects. Making the system nonrewarding to those effects would help diminish those aspects. I believe the solution is making the political machine more multipartisan, and I think the way to do this is using Condorcet voting instead of plurality voting. When the electorate can vote honestly, rather than strategically because of "wasted vote" concerns, then you'll get true representation in office.
BTW, you're more likely to find the minor parties more likely to work "for the people" than the major ones, because they are not (yet) in a position of needing to protect themselves. Their whole appeal is that they reach out to the masses not being served by self-serving parties. I used to live in MN and that's where I first got active in partisan politics - but it was a "third" party. The experience on the whole was great. Do make sure to pay attention to the "character" of the party though...any small party can be "for the people" when small, but you want to support one that will continue to be so when it grows, a "principle over politics" approach.
Reminds me of the statistics of gun violence among children. Interestingly, if you leave out the 15-19 year old "children", it drops to near zero. But stating the statistic raises the cry to "ban the guns, ban the guns!" when the problem is almost exclusively limited to teenage gangs.
You're absolutely correct, but retro-computing is a very small niche market. Working up the fabrication facilities for such a limited run wouldn't be profitable. As much as I'd like to see re-issues of beauties like the Apple//c or Mac Color Classic II, or something totally new like the Mac SE/40 some wish Apple had made before the PPC transition, it will never happen.
Now that slash uses CSS, it would be easy enough to submit a suggestion for change. I'd make the left and right margins a bit smaller, if it were up to me. Maybe very small left margin with a border on the left too, so it looks something like how Outlook does quoting. Either would work OK with nested quotes.
Good point, you technically should have paragraphs inside of blockquotes. I'd dispense with the i tag though - blockquote gives it enough visual distinction, and italics are generally harder to read. Putting a largish quote in all italics is a bad idea.
Granted, you probably wanted more RAM for similar performance to what you had under the regular MacOS. System 7 was usable at a basic level with 8MiB, and I found A/UX at a similar level of usability with the 17MiB in my IIsi. (Going from memory, not side-by-side tests.) A/UX didn't allocate itself much swap space in a default install, either.
I bought 16MiB to upgrade my Centris in late 1995 IIRC, and I think it was a bit over $100 then. Not pocket change (for me), but not completely horrible.
Good points. The 24-bit -> 32-bit memory switch in particular was one I remember. But much of this can be chalked up to developers using undocumented features, as you mentioned. Any OS vendor reserves the right to change those APIs at any time. If application developers stuck with published APIs, it's very likely their apps will work for a long, long time. I still ran Word 5.1 (circa 1993) under Classic on my G5, but (its contemporary) Excel 4 wouldn't launch.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps not a central argument, but part of the platform. Specifically the first and last paragraphs of that section, regarding fraud.
Of course, the problems of plurality voting methods still work to ensure that virtually no one in the USA will take a "third party" seriously enough to vote for them, no matter how good the ideas. You'll generally see good ideas for electoral reform, ballot access reform, etc, in just about every minor party...but because those parties themselves are marginalized, so are the ideas. When groups as ideologically diverse as the Green, Libertarian, and Constitution parties do agree on something, you'd think someone would take notice.
Yeah...Mexican Coca-Cola actually tastes good. I merely tolerate the US variety when faced with the absence of Pepsi.
I was referring to the ratio specified by the Constitution, not today's actual ratio. Being out of whack by a factor of 22 is pretty bad, IMO.
On the contrary, Geo. Washington warned against partisan politics. (However, given that everyone is going to realize the economies of scale that go with joining other like-minded people, it was pretty naive to think they wouldn't form.) Also, the mathematical study of voting systems was just starting to be explored during their time. (Condorcet was a contemporary of the Founders.) I don't think the Founders realized that the voting system itself was inherently problematic.
I've seriously considered running. You can bet I'd be seeking endorsement from the EFF, too. Too many pols have forgotten that government is supposed to be people-serving, not self-serving!
Actually the number would be over 8000 Representatives - the Constitution specifies a 1:30k ratio. I think 1000 Representatives would be a good compromise, though.
It's also an example of why the US needs more than just a Left and a Right. There is room for more than two parties - politics is not one-dimensional! But as long as the voting system inherently (through Duverger's Law) narrows the perception to "two major parties" we'll never have a truly healthy system that requires dialog, debate, and concensus-building.
If you can automatically convert the edges and the drop-shadows to have partial transparency as well, let me know how you do it.
There you go! Add that feature, and a usercss=username parameter for the URL. Instantly view slashdot with the CSS provided by any of the contest entrants. That would sidestep the slashdotting of the designers' sites that someone mentioned elsewhere.
My hope is that I could do something like transforming #3f3f3f to #000000 with 25% transparency, #aaaaaa to #000000 with 67% transparency, etc. - adjusting the base edge color when it's not black, obviously. The "shade" level between the edge color and the background color ought to translate directly to alpha. Even if I have to manually specify what the edge and background colors are (which is easy enough with a color selector) it would be faster than doing it truly "manually". It just has to find the "softened" edges and work inward until it finds the pure edge color, or the color begins to shift away from the "axis" between the two. Obviously I'm not a graphics designer, because I don't even know what terms to use to describe this.
And that's exactly the problem. I have no skills. Most of the icons were simple scaledowns of source images I no longer have. Most do have a defined "edge" color though. I just need a way to essentially say "for all transitional shades from white to X around the edges, change them to color X with an appropriate amount of transparency". But how to do that?
I second that! I experimented with #f8f8f8 (and variations around it like #f8eeff, etc) and while you'd think it would be too subtle, in fact it cut eye strain quite a bit. That's just one subjective anecdote, but hey.
Yeah, I'd love to see that too. I'm in the middle of trying to figure out how to convert some of my ancient (1990s) web GIFs into PNGs with proper alpha-based anti-aliasing. Any tips on automating this would be great.
I'd settle for a Carbonized version of MS Word 5.1.
Absolutely. My wife and I went back to the good ol' envelope system to keep us on our budget. Every week we withdraw an allotment of cash. We write checks to pay bills. Debit scares me. Credit may not be evil, but I'd rather avoid it just the same.
I've found I like XFCE better than KDE or Gnome, so I installed xubuntu-desktop. I haven't quite figured out how to edit the menus yet, so I'm tolerating the default arrangement.
The exact same argument applies to the media (**AA) corps too (IMHO, IANAL). If I'm licensed to watch/hear your product, then replacing the physical medium or getting it in a different format should be a very nominal (pennies!) charge since I can show that I've got a license for the product. If I'm buying a copy of the product for my own, then how do they have any right to restrict what I do with my copy for my own use?
For the type of stuff I'd use a cameraphone's camera for, a 50 kilopixel image would be sufficient. If I want a decent picture, I'll use a real camera with a hint of optical quality.
Both "major" parties have a vested interest in protecting the status quo. Nearly all states went to that sort of "all or nothing" EC allocation in the early mid-19th century, you know. It's not like partisanship is a new phenomenon. Geo. Washington warned us it.
We need a system that reduces the dependency on partisanship. I don't have anything against partisanship, per se, but I do not like some of its effects. Making the system nonrewarding to those effects would help diminish those aspects. I believe the solution is making the political machine more multipartisan, and I think the way to do this is using Condorcet voting instead of plurality voting. When the electorate can vote honestly, rather than strategically because of "wasted vote" concerns, then you'll get true representation in office.
BTW, you're more likely to find the minor parties more likely to work "for the people" than the major ones, because they are not (yet) in a position of needing to protect themselves. Their whole appeal is that they reach out to the masses not being served by self-serving parties. I used to live in MN and that's where I first got active in partisan politics - but it was a "third" party. The experience on the whole was great. Do make sure to pay attention to the "character" of the party though...any small party can be "for the people" when small, but you want to support one that will continue to be so when it grows, a "principle over politics" approach.
Reminds me of the statistics of gun violence among children. Interestingly, if you leave out the 15-19 year old "children", it drops to near zero. But stating the statistic raises the cry to "ban the guns, ban the guns!" when the problem is almost exclusively limited to teenage gangs.
You're absolutely correct, but retro-computing is a very small niche market. Working up the fabrication facilities for such a limited run wouldn't be profitable. As much as I'd like to see re-issues of beauties like the Apple //c or Mac Color Classic II, or something totally new like the Mac SE/40 some wish Apple had made before the PPC transition, it will never happen.
Now that slash uses CSS, it would be easy enough to submit a suggestion for change. I'd make the left and right margins a bit smaller, if it were up to me. Maybe very small left margin with a border on the left too, so it looks something like how Outlook does quoting. Either would work OK with nested quotes.
Good point, you technically should have paragraphs inside of blockquotes. I'd dispense with the i tag though - blockquote gives it enough visual distinction, and italics are generally harder to read. Putting a largish quote in all italics is a bad idea.
Granted, you probably wanted more RAM for similar performance to what you had under the regular MacOS. System 7 was usable at a basic level with 8MiB, and I found A/UX at a similar level of usability with the 17MiB in my IIsi. (Going from memory, not side-by-side tests.) A/UX didn't allocate itself much swap space in a default install, either.
I bought 16MiB to upgrade my Centris in late 1995 IIRC, and I think it was a bit over $100 then. Not pocket change (for me), but not completely horrible.
Good points. The 24-bit -> 32-bit memory switch in particular was one I remember. But much of this can be chalked up to developers using undocumented features, as you mentioned. Any OS vendor reserves the right to change those APIs at any time. If application developers stuck with published APIs, it's very likely their apps will work for a long, long time. I still ran Word 5.1 (circa 1993) under Classic on my G5, but (its contemporary) Excel 4 wouldn't launch.