The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum

A reader writes: " www.electoral-vote.com, a site of daily updated maps of the US electoral college based on a number of polls is probably a site that the policially inclined check daily. Well, it has been revealed that the person behind the site, AKA the votemaster, is none other than Andrew Tanenbaum, noted author of numerous CS books." He's also known for a little discussion with someone named Linus Torvalds.

Comments

Worldwide results

[ControlFreal]

From the other side of the ponds, the story is quite different. About 113,000 people cast their vote here. In this worldwide shadow election: Kerry wins (77.1%), and Bush comes second at 9.1%. Surprisingly, support for Bush is largest in the Middle East (many votes from Israel?). Some hilarious (frightening...) responses by US citizens to this shadow-election can be found here.

Another initiative (about 20,000 people) is here. Results will be published later today.

It's logical that the results are different than those in the US. However, one wonders how much of a hint some (some) US citizens (especially those posting very harsh comments in response to these shadow-elections) need to realize that it's not just the US that matters in this world.

Mod me flamebait, if you wish. But before you do, consider: it's not me delivering the criticism, it's 113,000 people (on behalf of a much larger group). I'm just the messenger boy here...

Re:Worldwide results

[Leftist Troll]

But why is the rest of the world against [the Iraq war]?
Because to them, this war is basically the United States saying, "we have the right to invade anyone anytime for any reason, and there's nothing anyone can do about it". For some reason other countries don't take that well ;)
This administration is thumbing its nose at the principals behind post-WWII international law (even UN secretary general Kofi Annon, usualy quite subserviant to the US, has called the war "illegal").

Specifically the ones who do the inevitably dirty work of wars, exporting security to the rest of the world.
What an Orwellian phrasing. "Exporting security"... that's quite a lot of security we've exported to Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Iraq. Look at what great shape those countries are in now.

I hope that the Europeans discover independent thought one of these days and stop letting themselves be culturally dominated by American media and American corporations.
Amen. Lets hope Americans do the same and stop letting ourselves be dominated by corporations and their media outlets.

Amazing

[fname]

I just read the votemaster description, and came over to Slashdot to submit the story. Funny. Despite being a small, self-run website, this is one I don't think Slashdot can even begin to take down (650,000 hits/day), although it's been the subject of DDoS attacks in the past. Being the computer wizard & all-around smart guy that Mr. Minix is, he's prepared for this by setting up backup site (just increment the number if it's down).

Mostly, I can wait to see how Linus is inspired by this project, writes his own version and then invites the global electoral community to help him make it even better. Take that! (j/k)

High turnout

[suso]

I just voted this morning and there has apperently been high early voter turnout for the past few weeks. I'm almost more curious to see how high of a voter turnout there will be. If it hits 81.8% or higher, it will be the highest since 1860.

Re:Sigh, how about a less biased site?

[Dasein]

Total Crap. Polls are conducted over a period of time. The votemast firgure out the middle date and picks the poll that has the latest middle data. In the case of a tie, he chooses the poll with the shortest duration.

It doesn't matter if the latest poll is a Strategic Vision poll (thought to be republican-leaning) or a Zogby (who some think is democrat-leaning)

If you've been really watching the site, you'd notice that there have been wild swings from Kerry to Bush in the past.

Now, I think that this is just a crackpot attempt to discredit what has been a really good site (even if I did wish that he'd throw out Strategic Vission).

Re:Serious questions

[benhocking]

how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate

I would guess that for many people the causal connection is backwards from what it appears you are suggesting. I.e., people "hate" Bush because they think that he his positions or courses of action are inappropriate. I personally don't hate him, but his positions and courses of action are why I'm voting against him. (Yes, I'm one of those many people who are voting against Bush more so than voting for Kerry. I've never been particularly partisan, but have always thought that respect for the environment was very important.)

the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period [and to bring freedom, democracy] ... This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq.

I do believe that the reasons you've listed are primary reasons we attacked Iraq. I'm still undecided as to whether the reasons were sufficient. Saddam was an evil person, and only time will tell whether we've helped to secure freedom and democracy for Iraq or whether we've prepared the way for a worse dictator. (The US has a bad track record with this - think Khomeni, etc.) Nevertheless, I do think that there has been significant profiteering going on, (e.g., Haliburton), and that is very disturbing.

An interesting thought experiment is to imagine what would have happened had we invaded Germany and removed Hitler instead of ceding the Sudetenland to him. People probably would have said we were overstating the threat, etc. Was Saddam as big a threat as Hitler? (Remember, Hitler had no WMD's either,) Maybe not. But if we had removed Hitler when he invaded the Sudetenland, Hitler wouldn't have been as big a threat.

However, even if you believe we should have attacked Iraq, it is hard to believe that Bush followed a well thought out plan. I think a good diplomat could have bargained with France, Germany, and Russia and gotten them on board. I know that seems impossible now, but that's only because Bush has so alienated them that it's difficult for even them to imagine ever helping us.

Of course, my number one reason for voting against Bush is because of the number of policies he has enacted that have rolled back the environmental policies enacted under Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton.

Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive

[HBI]

Don't take the Florida result in 2000 too much to heart. A lot of elections have post-election litigation associated with vote anomalies or recounts. It usually gets tossed out eventually because of no material effect on the result. It took 204 years and what, 51 elections for a situation like 2000 to present itself. It is not likely to happen again anytime soon.

Hopefully, the lawsuits will happen

[zogger]

I actually hope there are thousands of lawsuits. Besides helping to expose both the D and R partys shenanigans, I want to have them bust up diebold and those other election fraud companies forever, and get rid of the notion of pre hacked black box voting elections, and shakeup the population to stop being such utter sheep when it comes to something as important as this. If it takes a thousand lawsuits, better that than the alternative, which would be a full dictatorship shortly once these machines are entrenched all over and legitimised by an "accepted vote tally" and they know they can get away with it. 2002 was a test, and they "got away with it". If they do the same in 2004, that's it, it's over.

This is my opinion of course, but I think it has a lot of merit based on what we know so far.

My opinion of him has radically changed

[Billly Gates]

I first had issue with anyone who called a multithreaded filesystem "a hack" and his mean spirited flame war with Linus looked uncool.

Sure, you can disagree with many issues but there needs to be an open mind in the scientific and academic community. Flaming others is a sign of weakness and insecurity. Especially when he told Linus "You would not get good grades in my course..." kind of proves that.

He tried to explain himself later on slashdot saying he merely disagreed with him but I was not too sure.

www.electoral-vote.com is an awesome site that I find truly non biased. I go there every day being a political junky. For those who say he is liberal all I have to say is look at his past entries? When Bush was ahead after the RNC liberals accused him of being a Bush sheep.

What kills me is he using Linux and not Darwin, AIX, or MacOSX which are "not obsolete". :-)

I think Linus has the ultimate say now in the flamewar contest.

Re:Serious questions

[PMuse]

...the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. ...The US never went to Iraq for WMD (though we were justified in doing so for that reason alone, and probably expected to find quite a bit). Yes, in a way, it went for "oil".

Interesting. Now, consider that the Bush administration used the supposed presence of WMD as its primary justification of the invasion of Iraq to the nation and the world. Unless you dispute that (and it's pretty tough to dispute after reading the transcripts of President Bush's speeches between Jan 2003 and May 2003), then we come to an interesting conclusion. Apparently, you are less concerned about what a candidate/president _says_ his reasons are for doing a thing than you are concerned about what those reasons actually are. If you are correct that the U.S. invaded Iraq because it was a target of opportunity that would provide a platform for countering panislamic fundamentalism, then the WMD justification must have been both a smokescreen and a false statement.

I call this conclusion "interesting" because many who support Bush (perhaps not including you) spend much of their time spouting about "character" and "lies". It's refreshing to see a true pragmatist abandon that tired moral rhetoric and attempt to justify support of Bush's policies and actions based on facts, self-interest, and logic. I happen to disagree with your eventual conclusion (that Bush's methods are sound), but I admire the process by which you reach it.