Uh, are you sure it's the same people who bitched about Yahoo's IE7 that are supporting Google's IE7? Because there's more than one person on Slashdot, and not everyone here has the same opinions.
You not buying an Xbox does not tell Microsoft that they have crappy business practices, it just tells them you don't like the Xbox.
That's why you write Microsoft a letter explaining that you will never buy an Xbox because of their crappy business practices. And you include a photocopy of the receipt for the Wii that you did buy because you approve of Nintendo's.
Back in the heyday of Quake II, me and a friend who made the Quake Superheroes and Quake Superheroes II mods put in a superpower that would (ostensibly) reduce your ping time, using some kind of technobabble handwaving. Everyone was convinced that it worked, too, because when you used it, the ping times listed in the player screen would indeed be lower for you!
What almost no one knew was that the mod API allowed you to simply edit those values on the fly.:) I don't know if anyone ever caught on, but it was funny watching people argue over whether you should take a "real" superpower like flying or teleportation, or try to improve your ping:)
but it's still distortion, and not the way the sound is intended to be heard.
I assume you're only talking about audio playback, and not the initial recording -- distortion is key (and quite intended) in the sound of most electric guitar playing. See: Hendrix, Jimi.
Don't get me wrong, I think Jeff Bridges is great (Tron atones for a multitude of sins), but in my family we have a saying: "Want your movie to fail? Cast Jeff Bridges."
Nigel Tufnel: It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black. Marty DiBergi: Unless you had a femtosecond laser.
The real question is, why do we need a precise, "official" definition of "planet"? Astronomers and other scientists aren't going to make scientific decisions based on it -- it's not like it matters whether Pluto is officially a planet according to the IAU when an astronomer decides to study Pluto. "Oh, the IAU says it's not a planet, therefore it's not interesting enough to study."
In general, the whole point of category words like "planet" is so that I can point at an object and say, "That's a planet," and you immediately have some basic information about it, because we agree on what "planet" means. But if we're scientists, studying it (or deciding whether to study it), then we need a whole lot more info. Gas giant? Small, terrestrial rock? Iceball? Distance from star? Eccentricity of orbit? Etc. "Planet" doesn't tell you any of that.
Ultimately, the main reason to specify an "official" definition of "planet" is for the sake of deciding whether and how we want to encourage space travel, exploration, astronomy, and related sciences. To give an extreme example, if the definition of "planet" included any solid body primarily orbiting a star, there'd be millions of planets in every star system, and saying that NASA's going to go explore a planet would be meaningless. The public wouldn't care and wouldn't go out of its way to support it.
At the other extreme, limiting the planets to rocky or gaseous bodies at least the size of Mercury, orbiting a star, and having a very low orbital eccentricity, means that when you discover a body that only misses ONE of those criteria, the definition seems arbitrary and people will just ignore it. Imagine if we find a trans-Neptunian object that's the size of Mars, and is a rocky, terrestrial body like Mars, but merely has an eccentric orbit? Very few laypeople would accept that that's not a planet, mostly because laypeople's perception of a stellar body is based on its physical characteristics, not its orbital ones. If Earth was somehow flung out into space, orbiting nothing, it'd stop being a planet? (Well, we'd all be dead, but that's another issue.)
That was also easy enough, but mechanical machines like that are prone to more common failures, which was the primary reason for going with the electronic machines.
There are a LOT of other ways for a mechanical voting system to work without having to rely on an electronic machine. In California, we use something called "InkaVote" which is basically an ink-tipped prod that you use to mark your votes. The ballot slip slides firmly into the voting machine, and you flip the pages over and put a mark next to each candidate or proposition you support. It's pretty foolproof to use, although I have no idea about the ease of tabulating the votes. Presumably the main count is done with an optical reader (opaque black mark = vote), and manual recounts can be done by hand. You get a stub off your ballot which... proves you voted, I guess. I'm not entirely sure what it's for.
The "machine" is a little book-like thing that has each pair of pages set apart just wide enough to reveal one column of dots on the ballot.
Up until a couple of years ago, we used a system that punched out chads, although that was changed in the wake of the 2000 election (not that we ever had hanging chad problems here, but...). InkaVote seems to work pretty well. Entirely mechanical, few (and simple) moving parts. (I've never even SEEN a lever-voting machine; my only exposure to them has been in political cartoons.)
The film claims that Diebold voting machines aren't tamper-proof and can be manipulated to change voting results.
The film also reveals the shocking truths that the sky is blue, water is wet, and confirms the long-held rumor that former Pope John Paul II was in fact Polish.
Only the Legislative branch can do so, and only "when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." Ah, but in this case, it IS the Legislative who has done so; except we are not currently suffering from Rebellion or Invasion, ergo it would be unconstitutional.
Then there's the fact that any moral system of law would provide habeas corpus for all, not just citizens. There is no reason why a noncitizen should deserve any fewer legal rights when criminally accused than a citizen does.
Number of stations is the only issue. Why bring up the audience share unless you are looking to change legislation and policy to punish someone for daring to be too popular?"
They're not popular because they have excellent quality -- which would be a bad reason to punish them -- they're popular because they BOUGHT all the big stations. The reason this is a problem is that there's only a finite number of radio stations, because of the way the FCC allocates the EM spectrum. Having one entity account for that large a percentage of what people hear is bad for a democracy. It's not like people can just start up a bunch of competing radio stations -- you need an FCC license (expensive and limited in number), and there's all the usual costs involved in starting a business.
How is this a problem when they control a minority share of the stations?
Ok, I'll explain this in simple terms: It's a bad thing for a single entity -- government or corporate -- to have control over the news that a vast majority of the population hears. This is our base assumption, and if you don't agree with it, there's no point in continuing.
Assuming you do agree with it, then the problem is that Clear Channel has control over the (at least radio) news that around 75% of the population hears. Per our assumption above, this is a bad thing. The fact that Clear Channel only owns 11% of all the individual radio stations nationwide has no relevance.
Number of stations is not the issue, so much as how much of the audience they account for. They own around 11% of all stations in the U.S. (not 8%), but because almost all of those stations are large stations in large markets, they account for a huge percentage (75% or so) of all listeners.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, are you sure it's the same people who bitched about Yahoo's IE7 that are supporting Google's IE7? Because there's more than one person on Slashdot, and not everyone here has the same opinions.
Neck straps, historically, haven't worked very well.
That's why you write Microsoft a letter explaining that you will never buy an Xbox because of their crappy business practices. And you include a photocopy of the receipt for the Wii that you did buy because you approve of Nintendo's.
In (more) seriousness, wouldn't a coin be a pretty effective Faraday cage around an RFID chip?
Rupert Murdoch is from Australia, but he became a naturalized American citizen in 1985. (Source: "New Yorker" article from a month or two ago.)
Back in the heyday of Quake II, me and a friend who made the Quake Superheroes and Quake Superheroes II mods put in a superpower that would (ostensibly) reduce your ping time, using some kind of technobabble handwaving. Everyone was convinced that it worked, too, because when you used it, the ping times listed in the player screen would indeed be lower for you!
:) I don't know if anyone ever caught on, but it was funny watching people argue over whether you should take a "real" superpower like flying or teleportation, or try to improve your ping :)
What almost no one knew was that the mod API allowed you to simply edit those values on the fly.
Always? Nonsense! That only happens 37% of the time.
I assume you're only talking about audio playback, and not the initial recording -- distortion is key (and quite intended) in the sound of most electric guitar playing. See: Hendrix, Jimi.
Wow, that sounds difficult. Why didn't you use your hands?
Don't get me wrong, I think Jeff Bridges is great (Tron atones for a multitude of sins), but in my family we have a saying: "Want your movie to fail? Cast Jeff Bridges."
But only in Soviet Russia.
They don't want porn? What the hell do they do on the Internet, then?!
Nigel Tufnel: It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
Marty DiBergi: Unless you had a femtosecond laser.
Fixed that typo for ya.
Actually, you mean anecdotal information. Apocryphal means "made up" or "fictitious".
The real question is, why do we need a precise, "official" definition of "planet"? Astronomers and other scientists aren't going to make scientific decisions based on it -- it's not like it matters whether Pluto is officially a planet according to the IAU when an astronomer decides to study Pluto. "Oh, the IAU says it's not a planet, therefore it's not interesting enough to study."
In general, the whole point of category words like "planet" is so that I can point at an object and say, "That's a planet," and you immediately have some basic information about it, because we agree on what "planet" means. But if we're scientists, studying it (or deciding whether to study it), then we need a whole lot more info. Gas giant? Small, terrestrial rock? Iceball? Distance from star? Eccentricity of orbit? Etc. "Planet" doesn't tell you any of that.
Ultimately, the main reason to specify an "official" definition of "planet" is for the sake of deciding whether and how we want to encourage space travel, exploration, astronomy, and related sciences. To give an extreme example, if the definition of "planet" included any solid body primarily orbiting a star, there'd be millions of planets in every star system, and saying that NASA's going to go explore a planet would be meaningless. The public wouldn't care and wouldn't go out of its way to support it.
At the other extreme, limiting the planets to rocky or gaseous bodies at least the size of Mercury, orbiting a star, and having a very low orbital eccentricity, means that when you discover a body that only misses ONE of those criteria, the definition seems arbitrary and people will just ignore it. Imagine if we find a trans-Neptunian object that's the size of Mars, and is a rocky, terrestrial body like Mars, but merely has an eccentric orbit? Very few laypeople would accept that that's not a planet, mostly because laypeople's perception of a stellar body is based on its physical characteristics, not its orbital ones. If Earth was somehow flung out into space, orbiting nothing, it'd stop being a planet? (Well, we'd all be dead, but that's another issue.)
Mars is one thing, but New England? Come on, let's be realistic here.
According to every source I was able to find, Google Earth's imagery comes from both satellite photos AND aerial photographs.
;)
'Course, I found those sources by Googling, so maybe Google planted them all
Um, by holding a visual stimulus in front of the mouse and noting whether it responded to it, pointed its head at it, etc.?
There are a LOT of other ways for a mechanical voting system to work without having to rely on an electronic machine. In California, we use something called "InkaVote" which is basically an ink-tipped prod that you use to mark your votes. The ballot slip slides firmly into the voting machine, and you flip the pages over and put a mark next to each candidate or proposition you support. It's pretty foolproof to use, although I have no idea about the ease of tabulating the votes. Presumably the main count is done with an optical reader (opaque black mark = vote), and manual recounts can be done by hand. You get a stub off your ballot which... proves you voted, I guess. I'm not entirely sure what it's for.
The "machine" is a little book-like thing that has each pair of pages set apart just wide enough to reveal one column of dots on the ballot.
Up until a couple of years ago, we used a system that punched out chads, although that was changed in the wake of the 2000 election (not that we ever had hanging chad problems here, but...). InkaVote seems to work pretty well. Entirely mechanical, few (and simple) moving parts. (I've never even SEEN a lever-voting machine; my only exposure to them has been in political cartoons.)
There's also a documentary about these dolphins.
The film also reveals the shocking truths that the sky is blue, water is wet, and confirms the long-held rumor that former Pope John Paul II was in fact Polish.
Aaaaaand that action was deemed unconstitutional by SCOTUS shortly thereafter. So there's also a Supreme Court opinion that says that the Executive suspending habeas corpus is unconstitutional.
Only the Legislative branch can do so, and only "when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." Ah, but in this case, it IS the Legislative who has done so; except we are not currently suffering from Rebellion or Invasion, ergo it would be unconstitutional.
Then there's the fact that any moral system of law would provide habeas corpus for all, not just citizens. There is no reason why a noncitizen should deserve any fewer legal rights when criminally accused than a citizen does.
They're not popular because they have excellent quality -- which would be a bad reason to punish them -- they're popular because they BOUGHT all the big stations. The reason this is a problem is that there's only a finite number of radio stations, because of the way the FCC allocates the EM spectrum. Having one entity account for that large a percentage of what people hear is bad for a democracy. It's not like people can just start up a bunch of competing radio stations -- you need an FCC license (expensive and limited in number), and there's all the usual costs involved in starting a business.
Ok, I'll explain this in simple terms: It's a bad thing for a single entity -- government or corporate -- to have control over the news that a vast majority of the population hears. This is our base assumption, and if you don't agree with it, there's no point in continuing.
Assuming you do agree with it, then the problem is that Clear Channel has control over the (at least radio) news that around 75% of the population hears. Per our assumption above, this is a bad thing. The fact that Clear Channel only owns 11% of all the individual radio stations nationwide has no relevance.
Number of stations is not the issue, so much as how much of the audience they account for. They own around 11% of all stations in the U.S. (not 8%), but because almost all of those stations are large stations in large markets, they account for a huge percentage (75% or so) of all listeners.