Public education and some reforms to the election system have definitely made things better.

Voter fraud and intimidation was a lot worse when a large portion of the electorate was illiterate.

Here is an awesome, if lengthy (4400 words), article on the history of voting in the United States.

We actually owe more to the Australian government for our current system of voting than we do to the framers of our constitution, although their methods were originally adopted largely to disenfranchise blacks, it worked out in the long run. The electoral college is about the only thing we have left of our founders vision for elections.

No, you're not wrong--even though you may have misunderstood the issue when you posted.

Since this law wouldn't go into effect until all other states adopted the same law, the law will most likely NEVER go into effect!

So it's a much better idea to give candidates electoral votes proportional to their percentage of the vote within the state. Imagine if California or Texas were to do this? People belonging to the minority party would be more likely to vote because it would have some impact on the national election and third party candidates could actually siphon off a proportion of the electoral votes from both candidates instead of handing electoral votes to the party they most oppose.

Maine and Nebraska use a system kind of like this. I think they do winner take all, per electoral vote, on a district by district basis so it makes representation a little more granular, if not proportional.

Most importantly it could go into effect right away so you wouldn't have to wait until every other state got their act together before it could make a difference.

That's funny. I have requirements that demand MS Windows... we should hang out.

Being famous, rich and ASKED to be on TV are forms of recognition. Something came before to bring them about. Cause and Effect. Figure it out.

You've been modded funny but I would give this an insightful myself. It's similar to my new favorite phrase that I may have made up, "The less you know, the easier it is to have a strong opinion about it."

With the amount of money spent on marketing dwarfing what is spent on R&D by almost every industry, I cringe at someone saying too much is being spent on R&D. It may or may not be true in this case, but I think the larger problem is Microsoft's inability to execute on the ideas they come up with.

Case in point, the Zune could have been a great product had they taken the time to make the wifi useful and used their weight to pressure the music industry into giving customers a better, non-DRM'ed, experience. Instead they slapped together a product in their usual manner and went to the music industry to let the RIAA dictate what kind of experience they could give their customers.

Apple can spend a fraction of what M$ spends on R&D because they make up for it with good execution.

You have it tattooed just above your anus.

It might help if you actually read some of the articles in that search. (hint: headlines are designed to grab attention not relay facts) The "update" section at the bottom of the Wired article is especially sad, although maybe not as sad as the NYT article that conflates iTunes with the iPhone's app store.

My kingdom for a journalist.

Fair enough, pricing out a Dell on their site usually makes them a lot more expensive for hardware comparable to a Mac. The difference is you can get them at a fraction of that price when they put them on sale, or if your company is big enough to get a discount. Also, I can buy the parts to make a comparable PC for a lot less than a Mac. But if I have the money and I want to save myself the hassle I can pay the extra and just get a Mac. Which is what I usually do, but I don't really like it when it comes time to shell out the cash.

Yes, but you still haven't explained why your Apple II molested poor BitZtream. ;p

Seriously though, my comment was in reference to the numerous comments BitZtream has left on this thread attacking you. A lot of people try to deify those people that come first, or at least are given credit for getting there first, so I understand the temptation to attack them to compensate for it, but doing so is even more asinine than deifying them. I don't need to pee all over myself in deference to you, but I see no reason why I shouldn't be grateful for all your contributions to personal computing.

You're an ordinary man that stood on the shoulders of giants, as anyone that has ever accomplished anything has. And in case you haven't noticed more than a few people have clamored onto your back to make a name for themselves.

Anyway, good luck with DWTS I know you'll have some fun with it. And thanks for everything.

Ah, I see.

Well, you're special too BitZtream. I see all the amazing things you do and I hope you realize how important it is to all of us. It's not like you just stumbled into making the personal computer like Woz. You didn't just happen to be in the right place at the right time, and in spite of that you still managed to do so many things that haven't made you famous, or rich, or get you invited onto a TV show. So keep up the good work and let us know about any other titans of the industry that aren't worthy of our recognition.

The other possibility is that Apple might stop selling shrink-wrapped copies of OS X. Instead you get a copy when you buy a machine and that makes you eligible for upgrades. So every copy of the OS would be tied to a machine, in terms of sales, if not via hardware key.

Then PsyStar would have to pirate the OS and that would definitively put them in the wrong.

And that way everybody loses.

The kind of company they are is based on where they make their money. Apple makes some money selling high-end video software, but that's about it. iLife comes free with new macs. iWork doesn't have any copy protection on it. Steve Jobs has openly stated he doesn't care if you pirate OS X (he was assuming it would be used on Apple hardware at the time). iTunes barely breaks even, but it helps them sell iPods.

And that's the point, Apple uses their software to get you to buy their absurdly overpriced hardware.

The software IS the "Apple tax" and I think it's worth it when I use an Apple product and I think it isn't when it comes time to buy one. But the only way they offset the development costs is when you buy one of their machines because they just don't sell a lot of software.

This guy has some intense personal hatred of Woz (I suspect he was molested by an Apple II), he's been been flamin' all over this thread.

Bucking for some informative karma I've tracked down some visual aids for our comparison:

Windows 7

KDE 4

Your welcome.

Also, go to the ESPN360.com site and at the bottom of the video page there is a link to file a bug report. It's the closest thing to a contact form I can see so we may as well use it.