Slashdot Mirror
Domain: infamous.net
Stories and comments across the archive that link to infamous.net.
Stories · 3
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How We Used To Vote
Mr. Slippery writes "Think hanging chads, illegal purges of the voter rolls, and insecure voting machines are bad? The New Yorker looks back at how we used to vote back in the good old days: 'A man carrying a musket rushed at him. Another threw a brick, knocking him off his feet. George Kyle picked himself up and ran. He never did cast his vote. Nor did his brother, who died of his wounds. The Democratic candidate for Congress, William Harrison, lost to the American Party's Henry Winter Davis. Three months later, when the House of Representatives convened hearings into the election, whose result Harrison contested, Davis's victory was upheld on the ground that any "man of ordinary courage" could have made his way to the polls.' Now I feel like a wuss for complaining about the lack of a voter-verified paper trail." The article notes the American penchant for trying to fix voting problems with technology — starting just after the Revolution. This country didn't use secret ballots, an idea imported from Australia, until quite late in the 19th century. -
The Sponsorpool - An Alternative To Banner Ads?
Mr. Slippery asks: "A recent `Ask Slashdot' asked for thoughts about the Street Performer Protocol for funding creative work. I'd like to ask the Slashdot community for feedback on a different method, something I call the sponsorpool. (Mirrored here in case my DSL line gets Slashdotted.) It's a Web version of this: `Imagine that a street musician collects money in his hat. After every song, he reaches into the hat and pulls out a dollar bill (assume that all contributions are dollar bills). Contributors write messages on their dollar bills, and the musician reads out loud the message on the bill he selects. The more dollar bills - the more money - a contributor gives with their message, the more often their message will be selected and read to the audience.'" An interesting thought, but is this really all that different from banner ads? Would something like this work? -
Both Students and Teachers Use Technology to Cheat
Mr. Slippery writes "Baltimore City Paper's Cyberpunk column (which, incidently, is where I first learned of /.) has an interesting bit on the impact of technology on college essays - students downloading pre-written papers off the net, and professors using automated systems to grade them. Ah, the circle is complete." This story has no "news" in it, but writer Joab Jackson's take on the subject is interesting. (Disclaimer: Joab's a personal friend - and I used to write for City Paper too. - RM.)