Slashback: Electioneering, Blimps, Shuffling

Slashback is back after a long absence being devoured by gnomes. Read on below for updates on past Slashdot stories about the continuing Washington election brouhaha, the FBI's latest hunt for server logs, Photoshoppified GIMP, and more.

Let's get the politics out of the way.

The Washington state Republican Party has been working to prove that the election of November 2, between Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi, was too fraudulent to be trusted, given the small margin of victory by Gregoire (129 votes), and they want a new election. Hundreds of alleged fraudulent votes (mostly felons, but also out-of-state, duplicate, and deceased voters), uncounted ballots, unaccounted-for absentee ballots, and illegally counted provisional ballots comprise the bulk of the GOP's case. The trial begins May 23, and the judge expects it to last two weeks. The hearing to decide the burden of proof standard will be May 2.

Unctuous politicians relive their student-council glory days:

Jackson West writes "As it stands, two versions of the Electronic Engineering bill (discussed earlier on Slashdot) presented to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have passed their 'first reading.' This means both the first, unamended piece of legislation, and an amended version that will "specifically exclude web logs, forums, opt-in email lists and postings on general web pages." The Rules Committee will consider the amended bill on Monday, with a final vote on both bills on Tuesday."

How to get attention, part IIVVIVIVM.

SanLouBlues writes "On March 30th, Slashdot reported on the FBI request for the logs of several radical-leaning sites. The Washington Post has an article about the man who was responsible for the posts which resulted in the FBI request. He claimed to have killed a cop in several forum posts."

Now on to the fun stuff!

Matt Omori writes to say that GimpShop, the recently mentioned version of The GIMP hacked to feel more familiar to users of Photoshop, isn't just for Linux and Mac OS X. "Yes, it's finally been coded for Windows XP. After lots of hard work, some people devoted to a website, plasticbugs.com, have coded GimpShop for Windows."

To use it, you'll need Windows XP, GTK+, and a reboot. However, I'd also like to point out a BigSven's comment about the themeability of The GIMP; it would be great to see GIMPersonalities of all sorts -- and it sounds like this can be accomplished with some XML editing.

Still looks actionable to me.

MrToast writes "The iPodLounge is reporting that LuxPro's Super Shuffle is back, but this time with slight alterations. The Super Tangent, as it is being called, has a slightly different button area and also has new headphones. Otherwise it appears to be identical to the iPod shuffle."

(The SuperShuffle disappeared from the Web site, and was reported as a hoax, shortly after it was mentioned in mid-March.)

Let's close on some uplifting news. Vaeske writes with more on my favorite futuristic means of broadband delivery, region-covering airships. "GlobeTel Communications Corp announced that they will be showing their prototype of the Sanswire One on April 12th. This "Stratalite" as they call it, will float in the stratosphere at 65,000 feet and provide line of sight communications to approximately 300,000 square miles, providing two-way high-sped communication. This project has attracted many high-profile NASA engineers to leave their posts for a position with GlobeTel. The military has also shown interest and was present at the GlobeTel Summit."

Let's get the politics out of the way

[Bongo Bill]

Recounts: not just for Democrats anymore!

Hey...

[ImaLamer]

Don't blame me, I accidentially voted for Pat Buchanan

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[Carnildo]

And if you lived here, you'd be getting reports on the *exciting* hijinks:
1) At least half of those "felon voters" who shouldn't have voted were juveniles when they were found guilty, and thus never had their voting rights stripped. Many of the others had their rights restored after serving their sentences.
2) Someone is challenging the votes of around 15,000 voters on the grounds that they are illegal immigrants. The evidence? Their last names don't sound American enough.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[pudge]

At least half of those "felon voters" who shouldn't have voted were juveniles when they were found guilty, and thus never had their voting rights stripped. Many of the others had their rights restored after serving their sentences.

That's false. Some of them did turn out to be juveniles, yes, but it was not "at least half." Not even close.

Someone is challenging the votes of around 15,000 voters on the grounds that they are illegal immigrants.

I've never heard this, and if true, it has absolutely nothi

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha. Depends on what you're talking about. The totality of all the votes alledged to be improper, or the worst cases of certain small counties. In which case his allegation is close to what was recently printed in the Seattle Times.

The fact is, the republicans list of improper voters isn't much, if any, more accurate than the various counties lists of proper voters. If they can't get it right at this late stage of the game, with all the heavy lifting done by the counties already, their expectation that the counties, which aren't as well funded as the Republican party, should have been able to do better is ludicrious on it's face. To say nothing of the relative sin of counting the vote that should be invalid versus the discounting of a valid vote.

If Rossi by 49 is fit to be a duly elected governor, then that horrible bitch by 129 is at least as worthy. That said, they're both comtemptible douchebags. I can only assume both political parties are in silent agreement to make Washington so unlivable that all the transplants will be driven back home before they agree to resume sensible policies.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[AstroDrabb]

I am not a Rep. or Dem. so I am not showing bias here. However, do you have any valid links to _real_ evidence to your statments? No, Left leaning sites don't count.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[hesiod]

> I am not showing bias here.
> Left leaning sites don't count.

I think you need to work on your bullshitting skills a bit more. There are only three sentences, but you still managed to contratict yourself completely.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[Phillup]

The evidence? Their last names don't sound American enough.

You forgot the punchline. Dude's last name is: Ringhofer.

Man says votes from illegal immigrants
He culled list of voters for names that 'appear' foreign
Jim Camden
Staff writer
March 31, 2005

A Soap Lake man is challenging the voting credentials of hundreds of Washington voters, saying he thinks they're illegal immigrants who registered and cast ballots illegally.

But Martin Ringhofer may have a hard time proving the challenges he has filed in Spok

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[deserttrail]

Lets not forget that Gregoire didn't win that slim margin until after the third recount.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[ahdeoz]

Actually, it was a suspected fraudulent recount that gave the Democrat (Gregiore) the victory. An election official (you know, the ones who count the votes) was quoted as saying "third times the charm!" when his preferred candidate won after two other counts that had the Republican (Rossi) as winner.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[pudge]

This has nothing to do with recounts. This is about challenging the result and having a new election, not recounting the past election.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[pudge]

I was making no value judgments of any kind about whether recounts or having a new election is good or evil. In fact, I never had a problem with having recounts, either in WA or in FL (in FL I merely had a problem with the uneven recounts, which seven of the nine Supreme Court justices also thought was wrong). I supported the right of the Democrats in WA to have their second recount, even though I thought the recount itself was poor.

Further, I never said trying to nullify the election through a lawsuit i

You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't...

[CSMastermind]

It's not the system; it's the people who are using it. Both the politicians running it and the general public who buys into it. Here's a summary of what's wrong :

The media
The media in the USA is insane. They're the single biggest lobby group in America today and not only that but they're also in the director's chair because they control what politician's get elected. Everyone should go look up a documentary called Orwell Rolls in his Grave. Now a day's, all the media is controlled by a few companies thanks to deregulation by the FCC. And they can use the media to say whatever they please, and put down the opinions of anyone who disagrees.

The politicians
Basically all the politicians are rich white men. They got their wealth from inheritance. If they worked for it then they got some real lucky breaks. George Washington in his farewell address warned of political parties and named them one of three things that could break the American system. And guess what...they are. Right now there are two major political parties. It's impossible for two parties to accurately represent the broad spectrum of views held by millions of people. What more these two parties have near complete control so you're either part of them or you aren't a politician.

The people
We're the ones who let this happen and what more most people voting don't vote based on issues. Those who do don't check their sources and are very poorly misinformed. It's almost exactly like Fahrenheit 451 (The Ray Bradbury book....so help me god if someone mentions Michael Moore) where people vote based on who looks best, without even listening to them.

End conclusion? If you want something to change do something about it, do it a little at a time, learn the facts, read your history books and be sure to watch your politicians closely.

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[Koiu Lpoi]

I do learn the facts, I do read my history books, and I do watch my politicians closely.

And I'm getting the hell out of here!

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[pudge]

Basically all the politicians are rich white men. They got their wealth from inheritance.

One of the people in this race was a woman, and the other was a lower class guy who worked his way through college.

Washington in his farewell address warned of political parties and named them one of three things that could break the American system. And guess what...they are.

We've had two-party rule since Washington left office. If it hasn't "broken" the American system in the last 200+ years, what makes you thi

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[Kell_pt]

>> We've had two-party rule since Washington left office. If it hasn't "broken" the American system in the last 200+ years, what makes you think it will happen now?

Actually, it makes you think it took 200 years to subvert everything. Which is why gradual changes are so hard to detect. In the span of so few generations, so much has been lost.

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[pudge]

In the span of so few generations, so much has been lost.

Such as?

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[Mycroft_VIII]

Read the bill of rights sometimes and see wich of those in-aleinable rights haven't a defacto 'unless the federal government decides otherwise' tacted onto them.
An easy, if somewhat contriversial example: how is it possible to be jailed for simply having a firearm on you when BEAR and NOT INFRINGED both apear in the second amendment (and before some ignoramus quotes the 'well regulated millitia part' please be aware if you are a us citizen of leagle age and sound mind you ARE the millitia. That and wel

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[CSMastermind]

In this case you are correct about the canidates and the campaigns. But the parent to my orginal post said that the American system in and of itself was broke, my responce was a generalization of the system as a whole. As for the system not being broken for the past 200 years......well all I have to say is that I would argue that over time the two party system as degraded the electoral process. The vast majority of American presidents would not be able to get elected today. I'm not saying we should throw

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[pudge]

The vast majority of American presidents would not be able to get elected today.

That's not evidence anything is broken or degraded. Clinton and Bush probably couldn't have been elected 100 years ago, yet most people can agree that at least one of them is a pretty good President. And I am sure you can think of many of those "vast majority" of Presidents who could not get elected today who never deserved to be elected in the first place.

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[CSMastermind]

The ones who didn't deserve to get elected? Grant, Hoover, Adams, Buchanan, Johnson, and Harding all come to mind. As for those who did get elected, we're amazing presidents and would be crushed today? Jackson, Lincon, FDR, and Polk. But you are correct in your statement of this not being edvidence of it being broken. Still can I ask you this....do you honestly feel that the people we elect are the best for the job?

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[pudge]

do you honestly feel that the people we elect are the best for the job?

In the case of Reagan, I think so. In the case of W, the jury is still out (I wouldn't think he is the best for the job looking at resumes or abilities, but OTOH, he might turn out to be the perfect leader for the time we are in; ask me again in 20 years).

But largely, no, I don't think they are always, or most often, the best. And I don't think that's ever been the case. I think Washington was the best for the job, but not Adams or

Re:Reagan? Really?

[bodrell]

The deficit, eh. A huge percentage of that was to fight the Cold War, which I am very happy we did. I am not happy about all the increases in social spending, but so what? How could I ever be happy with everything anyone does?

I guess I'm just unclear on the ideology here. Do you believe in fiscal responsibility? That's generally a "conservative" principle, whereas the pattern of spending during the Reagan years is anything but responsible. Do you believe in a nation's right to self-determination? That's another principle generally considered conservative, but fighting the Cold War went directly against it. Protecting a foreign country from communist invaders is one thing, but that is not what happened in Nicaragua, where the US funded the foreign invaders to try to overthrow a democratically elected Sandinistas. You may not agree with Sandinista politics, but do you really think they were a threat to the United States?

As to lying ... he is a "documented liar unless you believe" ... ? If it is left up to belief, he is not therefore a documented liar, and saying he is is, well, a documented lie on your part.

Point taken. That was poorly worded. I guess I should say that Reagan has been documented saying things that would be considered lies beyond a reasonable doubt. He was the commander in chief, and it is unreasonable to believe that he had no knowledge of what Oliver North was doing, or what the CIA was doing. In retrospect, Reagan's Alzheimer's makes his "I don't remember" statements slightly more believable, but not enough to exculpate him. But since there is really no way to determine someone's memory, it is untestable. He was certainly involved in some despicable covert operations, and that is documented (they happened on his watch, and he--not Congress, not anyone else--was responsible for the CIA's activities).

Anyway, more directly to the point: what President has not had terrible problems on his watch, some even caused by him? Abe Lincoln essentially started the Civil War, suspended habeas corpus, etc. and we revere him. It's the big picture, and even regardless of anything else, Reagan will be considered the right man at the right time because he is what we needed to defeat the Soviets.

I don't revere Abe Lincoln for precisely the reasons you mentioned. The Civil War tore this country apart, and was almost surely unnecessary. I believe it helped perpetuate racism in the American South. By 1900, the last country in the Americas (Brazil) had repealed slavery. Perhaps if there had been a more organic opposition to slavery in the Confederacy, our country would be less racist today. Instead, blacks continued to suffer under carpetbagger regimes and foot-dragging Southerners who wished for the good ol' days before the war. It's all hypothetical, but it is a certainty that slavery would have been abolished eventually, even without Union intervention.

As for Reagan's legacy (defeating the Soviets), perhaps you are right. But I think it's much more likely that the US will have a financial crisis due to the massive debt accumulation that will far overshadow any gains from "defeating the Soviets" (if that's what the arms spending race really was).

Besides fighting the Cold War, why else do you think Reagan was great? I'm genuinely curious, because I can't think of anything.

Re:Reagan? Really?

[js7a]

How can you in good intellect have to ask that question?

Reagan started a downward trend in real income and poverty that his followers continue to this day. [bovik.org]

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." -- Matthew 25:41-46, NIV

Note that "His left" will be the right of those of us with the good conscience to face Him.

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[pudge]

No, it's been two parties. There were short periods, such as before the Civil War, where one party declined while another gained power. First the Republican-Democrats and Federalists declined while the Democrats and Whigs gained power, in the early 19th century. Then the Whigs declined while the Republicans gained power. But apart from those short transitions, it's always been two parties in control.

That's also not to say a third party candidate never had a chance at the Presidency: Roosevelt nearly pu

Re:A couple of observations....

[pudge]

A civil war certainly should count as a catastrophic failure of a system

You're saying a civil war was caused by having political parties? It's the opposite, the same factors causing the war also caused political factions which manifested as parties.

Issue-oriented? Is that what call-and-response attack ads are now?

I don't think you saw those in the WA governor race.

Re:You're proablly trolling but in case you aren't

[pudge]

the parties themselves are weaker than they were for most of US history.

The party *leadership* is relatively weak, yes. But I don't know that parties are weaker, they may just be manifesting their strength in different, less centralized, ways.

Media

[Mark_MF-WN]

Ah yes, the American media, who genuinely don't care that they are doing far more harm than good. There is no debate in which they can't reduce the level of discourse. There is nothing they can't spin into something unrecognizable.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[NanoGator]

"The American electoral system is getting pretty lame. A whole lot of asses need to be soundly kicked and then tossed in jail forever."

Uh, yeah, because the USA has an exclusive on this area of politics.

Re:Let's get the politics out of the way

[Mark_MF-WN]

Wow, I like the way you think. Why not wait until America's electoral fraud problems become the world's worst, and THEN fix them? Or why not wait until every other country fixes their electoral systems, and THEN deal with America's problems? That'll work. Right.

There's nothing worse than people who try to ignore their nation's problems by pointing out that some other nation, somewhere, is worse. But hey, at least America isn't as bad as the Ukraine! Sure, every other western democracy has a superior

Mostly fellons

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be 10% of the US population [nationmaster.com]

Re:Mostly fellons

[CSMastermind]

That graphic you linked is misleading. With the exception of Russia, the other countries listed are much smaller than the US and they all have a dissimaliar set of laws. What's no legal in the US may be legal in Europe and vice versa. Not to mention this may just show that the US is tougher on crime or that crime is more reported, as the page notes.

Like...

[ImaLamer]

Do you mean anything like in Pakistan where there is no age floor for sex acts? Where you can legally sleep with 3 year olds?

Oh, sex outside of marriage is illegal, punishable by death though.

Re:Mostly fellons

[Kell_pt]

It's not really that misleading. According to this [census.gov], the US total population is close to 295.823.632 individuals. According to the above study, 23.677.800 crimes. That's roughly 8% crime/person rate.

Take Portugal, with its population of nearly 12.000.000 inhabitants, and 363,294 felons, which amounts to about 3%.

Now, that's a pretty big difference. You'll find similar figures on other countries.

Crime stems from your problems with poverty and lack of socialist structures. It's a dog eat dog world.

Re:Mostly fellons

[Dyolf Knip]

It also stems from a willingness to declare trivial acts "crimes" and villify and prosecute them far beyond anything sanity would deem reasonable. What is it, half of the USA's prison population is now there on drug charges? And probably half of remainder is there indirectly because of Prohibition II. The report is misleading because it does not define 'crime'.

Re:Mostly fellons

[conway]

And 89.7% of all statistics are false

The stats you link to show that 23 million crimes were commited, not that 23 million people were involved! Ever think about the fact that criminals tend to do a _few_ crimes before getting caught? It's only for "large" crimes (murder, rape, etc.) is it likely that the crime was commited only once. If a guy is caught stealing cars, he probably has done it quite a few times. Finally, criminals tend to get out of jail, and go back to doing more crime. Again, more than 1 pe

Re:Mostly fellons

[NanoGator]

"Everyone is a felon in the country. Convicted felons are a different story."

Stupid copyright law!

Rejected Slashback: Allume's JPEG compression

[Kris_J]

That 20-30% JPEG compression system mentioned on Slashdot a while back [slashdot.org] is out. I'm getting an average of about 21% on all my JPEGs, except CMYK ones -- they don't pack.

Implementations are currently limited to a simple (Windows?) archive package (which doesn't appear to do any other file types any better than the previous version). I'm hoping for a Firefox image plugin and a Pocket PC port myself.

Re:Rejected Slashback: Allume's JPEG compression

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

SLASHBACK:
That section of Slashdot.org that directly links Windows executables without warning.

Airships...

[ImaLamer]

On a completely un-related note; last night I had some kids convinced that the Statue of Liberty had those spikes on her head to protect NYC from Nazi airships during WWII!

Re:Airships...

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

You are a dangerous man, Ima. Very funny!

Kids these days... We knew the airships were a "Great War" item, that passed (gas) with the Hindenburg.

More Offtopic...

[MisanthropicProgram]

How the fuck am I going to spend ALL that time reading the links in the article and post before /. moves on to another?!? Hmmmm?!?!
In other words, sir, your post is just as on topic as everyone else's who really didn't read ALL of those links.

Eaten by gnomes?

[winkydink]

So we're reading gnome-vomit? Or did it return via the other end?

Fun stuff was best

[QuantumG]

GimpShop is cool. General themability of GIMP is even better. Of course, now that we've started down the path of making GimpShop people are going to whinge (don't they always) that GIMP doesn't have all the features of Photoshop. For those people I have two suggestions: code them, or pay someone to code them.

Stratalites are damn cool. You can use them like train stations to space. Get in your ground blimp, fly up to station 1. Get in your high altitude blimp, fly up to station 2. Get in your supermassive low pressure blimp and fly up to station 3. Get in your rocket and launch your ass into space.

Re:Fun stuff was best

[NanoGator]

"For those people I have two suggestions: code them, or pay someone to code them."

Or, if they need the features like I do, they can simply buy Photoshop. Somehow I doubt that $600 will hire enough programming time to address all of it. (Not to mention the time it'll take to code and test it.)

Re:Fun stuff was best

[QuantumG]

I know students who do tutoring for $20/hr cause it's the only work they can find. They'd much rather be doing programming. That's 30 hours of development. Now multiply that by all the people who would like to switch to GimpShop but want all the features of Photoshop. Get organised people!

Re:Fun stuff was best

[QuantumG]

I had this idea once. Basically you have a bugzilla which is for members only. You have to pay $10/month to be a member and for that you get 10 votes every month. You can file a feature request (or a bug) and that costs 1 vote. You can vote for feature requests that other people have filed (costs as many votes as you want). The money goes to a team of developers who work on whichever feature request has the most votes. You can also buy more votes for $1 each (so 10 votes a month is like the minimum).

Re:Fun stuff was best

[alizard]

Stratalites are damn cool. You can use them like train stations to space. Get in your ground blimp, fly up to station 1. Get in your high altitude blimp, fly up to station 2. Get in your supermassive low pressure blimp and fly up to station 3. Get in your rocket and launch your ass into space.

Why bother with a separate rocket or station 3? if your superblimp can get to space, why not just keep going using whatever ion drive rocket engine got it to space and orbital velocity in the first place?

Re:Fun stuff was best

[QuantumG]

Well obviously because it can't. A blimp big enough to float in the upper atmosphere would be broken apart by the winds in the lower atmosphere. So you need to stop and change blimps.. and that means you need to have stations along the way to keep and maintain the blimps (not to mention the possibility of assembling or at least inflating them there in the first place). And yeah, an ion drive that is either powered by solar power or by beamed energy is definitely a good idea for getting a blimp up to orbi

Re:Fun stuff was best

[QuantumG]

And what if you need some feature that Photoshop doesn't have? You have to beg Adobe to code it for you or use a non-integrated third party tool. If all the Photoshop users would stop paying Adobe, pool their money and hire developers to make GimpShop do everything they want, it would be a better image manipulation program than Photoshop within a year. But people would rather be slaves to a proprietary software company than co-operate with each other. It's like unionisation. People would rather keep ho

Re:Fun stuff was best

[Anonvmous Coward]

"And what if you need some feature that Photoshop doesn't have? ... But people would rather be slaves to a proprietary software company than co-operate with each other."

Oh right.

a.) Photoshop has a hell of a lot of features. It's difficult to imagine that short of automation (Photoshop is scriptable) that a feature is that necessary.

b.) If they really really needed one, they might as well look into making a PS plugin. Hopping from GIMP to PS for one feature is not desirable.

Those peeps, in that rare

Re:Fun stuff was best

[QuantumG]

It's hard to write plugins for Photoshop (or any proprietary app) because often all the other plugins are proprietary (so you don't have anything to work from) and the interface that is actually exposed to plugin writers is not sufficient. You do make a good point though, thank you.

Re:Fun stuff was best

[Anonvmous Coward]

"It's hard to write plugins for Photoshop (or any proprietary app) because often all the other plugins are proprietary (so you don't have anything to work from)"

Fair point.

"the interface that is actually exposed to plugin writers is not sufficient."

Unless you've actually explored writing a Photoshop plugin, this is not fair to say. I have written plugins for various apps before and some SDKs are good, some aren't. On the flip side, having source code is nice, but if you have to change it in order to make your feature work, then you risk being boned when a new version comes along.

Re:You only need one stratalite?

[QuantumG]

Yep, that's JP Aerospace [jpaerospace.com]. Havn't heard much from them lately.

I for one welcome...

[j14ast]

the return of our slashback overlords.

Anyone find it funny how the r's are trying this now? After all the hay they mad from the d's attempt?

That's funny

[fm6]

When they thought they had won the Washington Governor's election, and the Demos complained about votes that should have been counted but weren't, the Repubs sneered at them as poor losers.

Re:That's funny

[a whoabot]

The new(?) Republican thing is double standards. They get away with it because the left(not saying the Dems are the left) is toothless and because they themselves don't see it as double standards but just one standard: whatever helps "the right" is good, whatever helps "the left" is bad. Everything's a war for them nowadays and everything's fair in war.

Re:That's funny

[Mr. Slippery]

The new(?) Republican thing is double standards.

Not that I want to defend the Republican party (not while it's being controlled by theocrats and neoimperialists, anyway), but double standards are politically universal.

Re:You're not biased

[rmerrill11]

"Just take a look at this, which, as you'll notice, isn't getting any mention in the media, because it's GOP-bashing season right now (well, all the time really). If it was claimed to be a Democratic memo, the media would be describing it as a Republican "Rove-esque" trick. ..."

You are complaining that the anonymous Terry Schiavo Republican Talking Points memo [go.com] was faked by the Democratcs. Because, of course, any reporting on criticism of the Republicans is a partisan trick and an indication of media bias?

Re:That's funny

[pudge]

Well, no, they didn't. They said the law should be followed. Which is exactly what they are saying now.

It's the Democrats who have changed their tune, previously saying the law should be bent to count every vote, and then once they took the lead, said the law should be followed strictly.

Re:That's funny

[fm6]

Maybe that's the Repub line now. Definitely wasn't back when they'd thought they'd won the initial vote. I remember official releases that said things like, "The Democrats never consider an election final until they've won."

Re:That's funny

[pudge]

I think we're talking about two different things. The Republicans certainly did complain about the Democrats and their fishy behavior: continually finding new votes, trying to bend the rules (such as getting a list of provisional voters, which federal law prohibits), and such.

And certainly, the rhetoric was heated on both sides: the Republicans called on Gregoire to concede, and the Democrats responded in kind. Then when the results flipped, so did their rhetoric.

I was unhappy with the GOP rhetoric (and

Re:That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Rossi very openly called for Gregoire to concede the race, for the good of the office, or whatever it was, when Gregoire was still behind and asking for a recount and all that.

Funny, also, in that Gregoire *DID* follow the legal steps...

I want to know the party breakdown on ALL contested ballots and voters.

Looks to me like the law *was* followed. It's sour grapes by Rossi and the Washington Republicans.

Get over it.

Move on.

Oh, I live in Oregon.

Re:Right...

[pudge]

The fact is they advocated denying the votes that were legally made in a timely fashion

They opposed including them in the recount, because that is what the Secretary of State said, and what they thought the law said. They did not oppose including them in the initial count.

and they simultaniously sought to have votes that were legally made in a less than timely fashion counted.

I know of no examples of this, except for maybe overseas ballots, and then only because King County sent them weeks too late.

A Word of Warning

[ewhac]

Adobe likes to think it has software patents on certain user interface elements of Photoshop. Macromedia was sued not long ago for emulating some of these elements in their Flash authoring tool (no idea how that suit resolved). Adobe are also litigious so-and-sos who are all too willing to harass people in defense of their intellectual "property".

So if Adobe feels even the slightest bit threatened by it, expect the project to receive a nastygram.

Schwab

Re:A Word of Warning

[NanoGator]

" Macromedia was sued not long ago for emulating some of these elements in their Flash authoring tool (no idea how that suit resolved)."

Macromedia counter-sued under the claim that Adobe violated some of their patents. They traded licences or something or other and it was dropped. (Macromedia may have had to make changes, but my memory is fuzzy.)

"Adobe are also litigious so-and-sos who are all too willing to harass people in defense of their intellectual "property"."

So long as Adobe is within their

I don't understand the acrimony directed towards

[MarcoAtWork]

the gimpshop guy by the gimp developers: they chose a license for Gimp that allows this kind of modification, the guy was definitely within his rights to go ahead with it whether or not Sven (or others) would've preferred him to 'work with them and not fork things'.

Rather than focusing about his 'rude' modus operandi Gimp developers should notice the HUGE positive reaction to his modification by 'normal users': if instead of sitting in their ivory tower and going on about 'Gimp is not PS, we won't change how the UI operates' the Gimp devs listened to users who have been begging for a PS-like UI for YEARS there wouldn't have been any need for a fork (they've also been beggin for adjustment layers as well, but who knows when that will happen).

I thought that this is what Open Source is all about: if you don't like it, fix it and release it (like this guy did).

If he had 'followed due process' he'd just have been ignored because 'Gimp is not Photoshop'. This seems like a case of damned if you do (you shouldn't fork the gimp) and damned if you don't (you're not a coder, so you have no right to complain).

Re:I don't understand the acrimony directed toward

[QuantumG]

This is what open source is about. Please don't let people's egos get in the way of making great software.

Re:I don't understand the acrimony directed toward

[k98sven]

they chose a license for Gimp that allows this kind of modification, the guy was definitely within his rights to go ahead with it whether or not Sven (or others) would've preferred him to 'work with them and not fork things'.

Noone implied he didn't have the legal right to do so. He's not violating the law, just unwritten rules of etiquette; It's polite to try to cooperate before forking.

The real issue here, which the poster mentioned, isn't that he forked Gimp, it's that it seems he may have changed parts which didn't have to be changed in order to achive what he did. That's doing a disservice both to both parties, since it'll make it more difficult to merge in his changes into the Gimp, and newer changes to the Gimp into GimpShop.

If he had 'followed due process' he'd just have been ignored because 'Gimp is not Photoshop'.

What exactly do you base this on? The Gimp developer who posted seemed quite open to the idea. There's a big difference between developers not considering requests from users and developers not considering an implementation of said request.

Re:I don't understand the acrimony directed toward

[k98sven]

I'm not the guy, so I don't really know his motivations, but he might have felt that 'do first, ask for permission later' was best in this case to create buzz about this issue.

Um, yeah. But it seems he didn't do that either. Seems the guy hasn't made any effort to work with the Gimp people, even when they contacted him.

That is unpolite, whatever way you look at it.

Obviously when faced with LOTS of users cheering this modification the Gimp developers will be a lot more open to the idea than if a lone de

Re:I don't understand the acrimony directed toward

[Speare]

Okay, I'm not a fan nor a foe of the GIMP dev team, but I have to ask the same thing Sven said: how long do you think GimpShop guy is going to keep up a modern version of the modifications? Will there be a GimpShop 2.6? 2.8? 2.10? 3.0? If he has the personal dedication to rewrite GimpShop mods into each "end user" release of the GIMP for just a year, I'll be impressed. Itches fade and some itches aren't worth scratching for long, no matter how many other non-technical users are clamoring for the implementation.

Sven had some good points: if the GimpShop were done "right" with the architectural aids that the GIMP already offers, then the work would be a lot more manageable, and would end up being a long-life supported option, even after the GimpShop guy was no longer itching to keep it up. However, in the one little posting linked, Sven said he got no reply-- it's hard to tell if the GimpShop guy was ignoring Sven for past sleights and attitude, or just didn't get the messages, but either one is pretty believable.

I do think the GIMP development team needs to realize that as the premiere image editing package for the OSS world, that they have a certain obligation that comes with it. Whether you like it or not, you're a role model, so you should act like one. Listen to users who don't code. Do some of the heavy lifting for those users. Incorporate features which interested Photoshop users want. Spend time on doing a few more things in a slightly more leader-compatible way, and drive adoption forward. You can't expect outsiders to become developers in the huge GIMP codebase to scratch their itch, because the key people who have the key feedback are not coders. Approach your userbase with magnanimity and humility instead of arrogance and disapproval.

Re:I don't understand the acrimony directed toward

[mr_burns]

Yeah, even given the argument that they didn't want to have the gimp look like pshop, they should have at least fixed the interface they DO have.

It's BAD. I've been trying out GIMP on and off for many years and I always left with a very bad "if I have to work this way every day for the next X years until they fix it, I'll go totally mad" feeling.

The job of running this project is not to hold it back, it's to maintain and improve it. If you say no to things out of stubborn personal preference you're not doing your job: You're getting in the way of people who want to do the work.

I feel the same way about this fork as I do about x11.org. It was a long time coming.

Re:I don't understand the acrimony directed toward

[QuantumG]

The problem is this feature of open source projects that everything has to go through some dictator before it goes to the users. The users should be decided which features and good and which features are bad. By that I mean that forks like this should be encouraged and users should actually support the software they choose so the best software has more resources.

Re:I don't understand the acrimony directed toward

[SiliconEntity]

...because 'Gimp is not Photoshop'.

Shouldn't that be 'GIMP Is Mot Photoshop'?

Two-way high-sped communication?

[Motherfucking Shit]

two-way

high-sped communication

Is that where one of the parties is on Ritalin and the other one is on Adderall? I'd hate to have to keep up with that conversation.

If you want to fix voting problems, vote 3rd party

[Future Man 3000]

Most of these problems are old ones, and the people you (may have) voted in last time have had ample time to make sure enough voting machines were out and triple check the felon lists.

The fact of the matter is that neither side really seems to care about fixing the system when they are in power. Perhaps they feel they have more important things to do than perserve voting integrity, but each side seems to gloat when it looks like the other is getting the short end of the stick.

It does not serve democracy to prop up this failed process; it doesn't even really serve the candidates. All it does is turn something that should represent the will of the electorate into an elaborate game of legal manipulation and shenanagans, and the only way to stop it is to have overwhelming and incontestible voting returns in 2006 for the Rastafarian candidates. Thank you.

Sloppy reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

I started reading the Washington Post story about the cop killer, and everything seemed fine until one paragraph stuck out like a sore thumb:

His eyes are not a madman's eyes, but they look dilated, nothing but pupils, and when he turns to face you, he stares. In the antebellum courthouse, surrounded by sheriff's deputies, the stare is merely awkward. Imagine, though, those black eyes at night, with him holding a gun.

What the fuck is that doing in a newspaper? It's the newspaper's job to report the facts, not demonise him. Is this what passes for journalism in the USA these days?

Re:Sloppy reporting

[Sloppy]

No, I'm Sloppy reporting. You must be new here.

Seriously, though, it's pretty weird that some editor didn't notice that paragraph. Imagine those black eyes at night, looking at a computer screen.

Re:Sloppy reporting

[murphj]

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 4, 2005; Page C01

Section C in the Post is the Style section. This is a feature story, not a news story. Feature stories frequently contain prose like that. It would not have appeared in a story in the A section.

Re:Sloppy reporting

[Alsee]

I hear coverage of the next presidential election will be moved to the Style section as well.

-

Re:Sloppy reporting

[gnovos]

His eyes are not a madman's eyes, but they look dilated, nothing but pupils, and when he turns to face you, he stares. In the antebellum courthouse, surrounded by sheriff's deputies, the stare is merely awkward. Imagine, though, those black eyes at night, with him holding a gun.

I dunno, it gets even scarier without the eyes...

His eyes are not a madman's eyes, for you see, they have been plucked out, and when he turns to face you, he can not stare. In the antebellum courthouse, surrounded by sheriff's dep

Eaten by Gnomes..

[marcushnk]

Slashback is back after a long absence being devoured by gnomes.
Lucky you don't use KDE.. Otherwise it'd be Dragons... 0.o

What the..

[StikyPad]

5 minutes ago:
Slashback: Electioneering, Blimps, Shuffling
Posted by pudge on Thursday April 07, @10:20AM
from the like-a-rolling-stone dept.

Now:
Slashback: Electioneering, Blimps, Shuffling
Posted by timothy [monkey.org] on Thursday April 07, @10:20AM
from the like-a-rolling-stone dept.

Who is this mysterious pudge? And why was he quickly and quietly removed as the author?

Re:What the..

[rzebram]

I believe pudge (Chris Nandor, http://sourceforge.net/users/pudge/ [sourceforge.net]) is one of the Slashdot programmers (if you look in the slash CVS you can see he has commit access). As for why he was removed, your guess is as good as mine.

Re:What the..

[pudge]

I started the article and handed it off to timothy, who then forgot to change the ownership to himself. And as I've edited hundreds of stories on Slashdot, I am not that mysterious ...

Pudge, Get Over It

[Doc Ruby]

When Pudge returns for a SlashBack, only the "Republicans wronged" phase of the contested WA governor election gets press. When their candidate was ahead by a statistically identical margin, after the first count, Pudge didn't seem to care how small it was. Even though the Republican margin, 46 votes out of 2.9 million, 3x smaler than this Democrat's final "small margin". And all the Republican rhetoric was "it's over, we won", and "Democrat crybabies just get over it". Especially poignant was the Republican candidate's public speeches demanding the Democrat stop the challenge, for "the good of the state". Now that it's months later, the good of the state demands a Republican challenge. Apparently, the good of the state of Washington originally demanded that hundreds of Seattle (Democratic) absentee ballots be rejected, including that of Seattle Councilman Larry Phillips [nwsource.com]. Isn't Pudge just a Republican partisan hack, sliding promotion of his side's weaselly campaign into the first story of a SlashBack peppered with other news of broad appeal?

Re:Pudge, Get Over It

[Doc Ruby]

When a "liberal editor" (what is that? can you check for a tattoo on their neck, like a bishop for their diocese?) posts a sneaky, one-sided partisan hackery, it will be time to out them as a partisan hack. Which you and I, both members of no political party, are each qualified, and entitled, to do. Having been made a "Foe" by Pudge (thereby justifying my calling him a Freak) during a threaded debate during the election last year, I watch him carefully. His partisan hackery is dangerous, because he posts bl

Re:Doc, Get Over It

[ptbarnett]

While the anti-Bush posts come from posters with no special privilege to form the discussions on Slashdot.

You obviously haven't haven't been reading postings by Timothy and the late, unlamented Michael.

And given the attitude of Slashdotters these days towards Bush, his partisan hackery is not only wrong, but unwelcome.

So, given the attitude of Slashdotters, partisan hackery from the other side is not only tolerated, but welcome?

(from another independent that recognizes partisan hacks when he sees

Re:Pudge, Get Over It

[Doc Ruby]

Reporting that Republicans have filed a lawsuit over a slim Democrat margin, on a "Nerds" website, is obvious promotion of the Republicans suing - repeating the propaganda. Slashdot's format doesn't usually let editors publish stories they write themselves - they usually have to select from the stories submitted by "outsiders". SlashBack is an exception. And it hasn't been used in months. So it shows up just in time for Pudge to report Republican news barely relevant to the interests of this site's readers. If this trial were relevant at all, it might be appropriate to publish a submitted story about its outcome. But instead, it's obviously an abuse of Pudge's privileged position to publish Republican propaganda.

Oh bah.

[oGMo]

"Obvious propaganda" etc. my ass. Just because it's not "promote the democrats!" it's eeeevil propaganda, right?

Wrong. Now it's fairly obvious that the Republicans want to win, and they change their tune when losing like anyone, but you hardly know the situation up here. It's much different than the national election; the Democrats have locally held the office for a long time, and we're in need of serious change. The business law up here is terrible, the economy is going to crap, the corruption at the

Sorry, but this was a couple of years ago.

[ptbarnett]

"On March 30th, Slashdot reported on the FBI request for the logs of several radical-leaning sites. The Washington Post has an article about the man who was responsible for the posts which resulted in the FBI request. He claimed to have killed a cop in several forum posts."

The Washington Post article was about a murder committed in November, 2002. The subsequent postings were six days later. The FBI is likely to have been disappointed if they just now made requests for server logs, after two years have elapsed.

I remember this particular incident, because I got a call from the FBI about it. The perpetrator sent his "manifesto" to an email address associated with a website I no longer maintain, apparently from an outdated list. The address got so much spam that I was simply using incoming messages to train SpamAssassin's Bayesian filter, then dumped them into the bit-bucket.

But, someone else forwarded it to the FBI (as I would have done, if I actually received it). Since my contact info was available for my domain name, I got a call from an agent who was trying to find any link between the recipients and the sender.

Killed a cop

[conway]

The slashdot blurb is quite misleading. If you RTFA, you notice that not only did he "claim to kill a cop", but made a specific reference to a specific murder of a specific cop. (Who actually was killed).
Now, whoever posts info in internet forums admitting he committed a specific murder, with details, is so stupid that he probably deserves what he'll get.

Re:Killed a cop

[swv3752]

Mickel is someone that believes that only through blood can Freedom be obtained. He believes that there is serious problems with the government and Corporations. Something that a lot of slashdotters rant about.

While I don't think killing a cop was the right thing to do, nor should Mickel be demonized for waging a revolution.

I shot the sheriff...

[identity0]

... but I didn't shoot no deputy.
Oh no, oh
I shot the sheriff, but I didn't post anonymously
Ooh, ooh, ooh Yeah

All around in my BBS
They're tryin' to track me down, yeah
They say they want to bring me in guilty
For the killing of a deputy, for the life of a deputy
But I say, oh, now, now...

- Bob Marley

Oh no, the FBI will be after Slashdot now!

About slashback absence...

[Zangief]

I thought slashback was absorbed into the whole dupe system...

Washington gubernatorial race

[Antony-Kyre]

If we don't fix the problems and have a fresh race among all the candidates eligible, then this will drag on and on for the four year duration.

At the very least, we should have another election this November, but it shouldn't be a run-off. It should be among all the candidates eligible last time, otherwise it's unfair cause it's changing the rules. If we want a run-off between the top two, then we'd have to hold a primary and have those two go on, or in other words, two more elections. I stick by what I say. I hope someone can back me up.

Slashback is back...

[SeaFox]

Slashback is back after a long absence being devoured by gnomes.

So will there be a Kslashback to fill in?

Electronic Voting Woes

[mrosgood]

Washington State Republicans, passing over dollars to pick up pennies.

Evidence Of Election Irregularities In Snohomish County, Washington, General Election, 200 [votersunite.org]

This is only about winning, at any cost. If the GOP was actually concerned about fraud, they'd insist that electronic voting machine vendors like Sequoia open up their boxes for independent inspection. As it is today, the contracts stipulate that vote counting is a trade secret.

That's just lovely.

iCopulate

[Lord Byron II]

The iCopulate really exists!!

http://www.luxpro-corp.com/e_sc01.htm [luxpro-corp.com]

Hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel for you. I just spent 10 minutes chasing down DLL dependencies to try and get this working, and it still complains about g_value_take_string being missing from libgobject-2.0-0.dll. I can tell this means I have a version mismatch, but I don't care enough to keep trying at this point.

I love open source sometimes.

"We made a version GIMP that is finally almost tolerable to use! Come check it out and see how easy it is!

Just make sure you first download an unspecified version of GTK+ for Windows, a