is this a troll? flamebait? if you are serious then i am astounded.
astounded!
the author of this proposal...
on
Lunar Lasers
·
· Score: 1
is named criswell. like the psychic in ed wood. remember? he was famous for his super wacky prophecies. like beaming electricity to the earth from giant power-plants on the moon....
regarding point #7, my understanding is that the choices for senate were NOT butterflied, and resulted in only a relative few (i can't recall the number. eek.) double-votes on the whole. which, if true, is evidence supporting the assertion that people found the butterfly confusing.
the thing about UI issues when you only get one shot for the user to get it right is that you have to make it either EXACTLY like every other version that has come before it so they can use it without thinking about it or you have to make it COMPLETELY foriegn so the user has NO CHOICE but to figure it out. this ballot only went half way, it changed important things about it but left it looking (at first glance) like it was exactly the same. people are timesavers by nature and if they THINK they know how to do something they are going to just plow into it (as many as 22,000 times in this case) they are also vain, and would rather not be forced to admit that they fugged up (in this case 19,000 times).
yes, how clever. all 2500+ of those 'gore operatives' voting for buchanan in a race seperated by (at the most recent estimate I have read) less than 2000 votes. damn them and their well-crafted plan!
The thing that we are forgetting is that the ballot or the voting machine or WHATEVER is a tool for people to cast their vote with. If (for whatever reason) a person casts what they believe is a vote for candidate A but their vote actually gets tallied as being for candidate B, that is a failure of the technology. It is easy (and fun, admittedly) to make fun of people who aren't quick or savvy enough to figure out how their specific ballot works BUT it really shouldn't count. There is no protocol for a re-vote, at least that I am aware of, but this situation is pretty tragic.
if 3000 people with the same model car all got killed by putting the car in reverse when they thought they were putting it in drive I don't think we would say anything other than "Who designed this horrible gearshift?!?"
i've had dsl from psn.net for about 3 months now. it is great (i hover around 6ook, synchronous). that being said: i still have my complaints. their tech support is non-existant(literally. they DO NOT reply to emails and i lose patience after listening to 45 minutes of cheez-jazz hold music. i managed to figure out what needed to know without them, but what if the line goes down? i live in fear...)and the installation was utterly traumatic, akin to a root canal that happens in three stages weeks apart by three providers (verizon -nee bellatlantic, northpoint and finally psn).
another thing, a friend of mine signed up with them maybe a month after i did. he got an email confirming an outside wiring date of christmas 2001! auspicious, to say the least...
bottom line: the connection itself is excellent. everything else: suck-a-doody.
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is this a troll? flamebait? if you are serious then i am astounded.
astounded!
is named criswell. like the psychic in ed wood. remember? he was famous for his super wacky prophecies. like beaming electricity to the earth from giant power-plants on the moon....
and maybe some cipro.
there is a sweepstakes over at harpercollins where you can win copies of several pratchett books and (!?) a clock autographed by him.
also, there is a scan of a few pages from the book.
regarding point #7, my understanding is that the choices for senate were NOT butterflied, and resulted in only a relative few (i can't recall the number. eek.) double-votes on the whole. which, if true, is evidence supporting the assertion that people found the butterfly confusing.
the thing about UI issues when you only get one shot for the user to get it right is that you have to make it either EXACTLY like every other version that has come before it so they can use it without thinking about it or you have to make it COMPLETELY foriegn so the user has NO CHOICE but to figure it out. this ballot only went half way, it changed important things about it but left it looking (at first glance) like it was exactly the same. people are timesavers by nature and if they THINK they know how to do something they are going to just plow into it (as many as 22,000 times in this case) they are also vain, and would rather not be forced to admit that they fugged up (in this case 19,000 times).
this was a spectacularly poorly designed ballot.
where did you pick up this tidbit?
yes, how clever. all 2500+ of those 'gore operatives' voting for buchanan in a race seperated by (at the most recent estimate I have read) less than 2000 votes. damn them and their well-crafted plan!
The thing that we are forgetting is that the ballot or the voting machine or WHATEVER is a tool for people to cast their vote with. If (for whatever reason) a person casts what they believe is a vote for candidate A but their vote actually gets tallied as being for candidate B, that is a failure of the technology. It is easy (and fun, admittedly) to make fun of people who aren't quick or savvy enough to figure out how their specific ballot works BUT it really shouldn't count. There is no protocol for a re-vote, at least that I am aware of, but this situation is pretty tragic.
if 3000 people with the same model car all got killed by putting the car in reverse when they thought they were putting it in drive I don't think we would say anything other than "Who designed this horrible gearshift?!?"
i've had dsl from psn.net for about 3 months now. it is great (i hover around 6ook, synchronous). that being said: i still have my complaints. their tech support is non-existant(literally. they DO NOT reply to emails and i lose patience after listening to 45 minutes of cheez-jazz hold music. i managed to figure out what needed to know without them, but what if the line goes down? i live in fear...)and the installation was utterly traumatic, akin to a root canal that happens in three stages weeks apart by three providers (verizon -nee bellatlantic, northpoint and finally psn).
another thing, a friend of mine signed up with them maybe a month after i did. he got an email confirming an outside wiring date of christmas 2001!
auspicious, to say the least...
bottom line: the connection itself is excellent. everything else: suck-a-doody.
i dunno. are you a gambler?