Steve Zachary's Profile

with 64-bit hardware and software, you can use vast amounts of RAM, which enables a whole new world of possibilities for applications

But the operating systems regular people use have essentially been slow to adopt 64-bit until recently, and won't plunge excluslively into 64-bit for another generation

Reportedly, next year's Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be 64-bit down to the kernel.

The verbal section is scored from 0 to 60 points

scored on a scale of 0-6

However the first 5 questions are important as a whole because they go a long way to determining the score potential.

essay scores are not included in the total score.

Rather than simply being placed at an x, y position on the computer's display, windows of running applications are then placed at x, y positions on a given virtual desktop “context”.

only one of which can be displayed on the computer's display at any given time.

Depending on state law and state party rules, when voters cast ballots for a candidate in a presidential caucus or primary, they may actually be voting to award delegates "bound" to vote for a candidate at the state or national convention, or they may simply be expressing an opinion that the state party is not bound to follow in selecting delegates to the national convention.

Campaigning for President often begins a year or more before the New Hampshire primary, almost two years before the presidential election.

All the superdelegates are free to support any candidate for the nomination.

there is a fixed number of pledged PLEO slots for each state, while the number of unpledged PLEOs can change during the campaign

At the 2008 Democratic National Convention the superdelegates made up approximately one-fifth of the total number of delegates.

In the party primary elections and caucuses in each U.S. state, voters express their preference among the contenders for the party’s nomination for President of the United States. Pledged delegates supporting each candidate are chosen in approximate ratio to their candidate’s share of the vote.

Pledged delegates are selected based on their announced preferences in the contest for the presidential nomination.

In 1982, the Hunt Commission recommended and the Democratic National Committee adopted a rule that set aside some delegate slots for Democratic members of Congress and for state party chairs and vice chairs.

All Democratic National Committee members and all Democratic governors were given superdelegate status.

996 all Democratic members of Congress were given superdelegate status.

The unpledged PLEO delegates are: all Democratic members of the United States Congress, Democratic governors, members of the Democratic National Committee, "[a]ll former Democratic Presidents, all former Democratic Vice Presidents, all former Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate, all former Democratic Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic Minority Leaders, as applicable, and all former Chairs of the Democratic National Committee."

The unpledged add-on delegate slots for the various states total 81, but the initial rule had been that the five unpledged add-on delegates from Michigan and Florida would not be seated, leaving 76 unpledged add-on delegates.^[19] Michigan and Florida were being penalized for violating Democratic Party rules by holding their primaries too early.

As of February 13, 2008 one analysis found that the 2008 Democratic National Convention would have 794 superdelegates.^[20] The exact number has changed several times because of events.

Superdelegates account for approximately one fifth (19.6%) of all votes at the convention.

Each of the superdelegates' votes is now equivalent to about 10,000 Democratic voters."

Once chosen, the electors can vote for anyone, but – with rare exceptions like an unpledged elector or faithless elector – they vote for their designated candidates and their votes are certified by Congress in early January.

Each state is allocated a number of electors that is equal to the size of its delegation in both houses of Congress combined.

U.S. territories are not represented in the Electoral College.

Constitutionally, the manner for choosing electors is determined within each state by its legislature.

Gradually throughout the years, the states began conducting popular elections to help choose their slate of electors, resulting in the overall, nationwide indirect election system that it is today.

The modern nominating process of U.S. presidential elections currently consists of two major parts: a series of presidential primary elections and caucuses held in each state, and the presidential nominating conventions held by each political party. This process was never included in the United States Constitution, and thus evolved over time by the political parties to clear the field of candidates.

Some states only hold primary elections, some only hold caucuses, and others use a combination of both.

These primaries and caucuses are staggered between January and June before the federal election,

In addition to delegates chosen during primaries and caucuses, state delegations to both the Democratic and Republican conventions also include "unpledged" delegates who can vote for whomever they want. For Republicans, these include top party officials. Democrats have a more expansive group of unpledged delegates called "superdelegates", who are party leaders and elected officials.

Thus, the presidential election is really an amalgamation of separate and simultaneous state elections instead of a single national election run by the federal government

The presidential ballot is actually voting "for the electors of a candidate" meaning that the voter is not actually voting for the candidate, but endorsing a slate of electors pledged to vote for a specific Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate.

Thus, the presidential election ticket will not list every single candidate running for President, but only those who have secured a major party nomination or whose size of their political party warrants having been formally listed.

wherein the ticket that wins a plurality of votes wins all of that state's allocated electoral votes,

Although Electoral College members can technically vote for anyone under the U.S. Constitution, 24 states have laws to punish faithless electors, ^[5] those who do not cast their electoral votes for the person whom they have pledged to elect.