A simple solid state chemical "reactor" that was able to extract and compress (well contain expansion) CO2, for example, would be a possibility. Combined with a pressure relief valve and a rather singificant supply you have a renewable supply and relatively safe mechanism.
Then again, I'd like to see a shift from solar panels as the primary fuel source. As has been proven, we can extract fuel from the martian atmosphere by taking hydrogen gas, gelled with methane to limit boiloff, and combining it with martian CO2. This would provide significantly more power.
This power could be supplemented by solar to extend the life of the rover once the feedstock was used up.
Another interesting scenario I've been speccing out is to send a slightly larger two component system that has a "fueling station" where the main fuel reactor resides, combined with a rover that possibly used an internal combustion engine (ICE) of say methane or oxygen/methane to provide significantly larger amounts of power to the rover. Again, once the feedstock has been used up, solar cells would then take over as primary power for the secondary systems (drive, comms, etc.).
For example, if the ICE was used to power a generator leaving the motors driven by electrical systems the last step of the combustion driven power system could be used to deploy the solar cells. and detach from the rover assembly. In this manner, you tremendously extend the life of the rover by keeping the solar cells protected for the initial part of the mission.
The tornado like winds that can be caused by dust devils is something that was discussed by NASA back in April and surely seems like the real answer:
You misrepresented or misunderstood what the article you reference said. It said that the dust devils on mars can be taller than earthbound tornados, not that the winds are equivalent. Remember that the atmospheric pressure on Mars is so much less that their duststorms are no more than a gentle breeze on earth. If the winds were truly tornado-like, how would you expect the very lightweight (on Mars) rover to stay put??
I'm not sure why they think its such a mystery now...
Probably because the article you reference had this to say about the dust devils and the results of their electrical charge: increased dust adhesion to space suits and equipment.
So the DDs would likely lead to a higher level of dust on the panels due to the electrical charge.
You know, I expect slashdot posters to generally not read the article in the original story, but to not read the article you post yourself? Come on!;)
The rover could do the same thing by tilting it's panels vertically and then letting rip with the u-sound. About one x-ducer per square meter is all it would take.
Not a terrible idea overall, but the mechanism to rotate the panels encounters the same basic problem of mass/mechanisms. They'd have to be engineered such that you could be assured they would always return to the proper position. Again, the failure result questions.
If the panels don't rotate back due to a failure, you'd likely lose much more power than just letting them get dirty over time. Better to have a power loss over time, than to have the rover lose power in week one because the panels did not rotate back to the proper position.
I still like your solution for your mower though.:)
Another lame "blame the SUV" post. Check reality and you'll find that the rise of helmet laws predates the rise of the SUV. Note I specifically say "the rise of". The SUV itself dates back some 80 years.
Simple logic really. If the SUV rise comes after the helmet law rise, then SUVs can not be the blame unless you want to claim the lawmakers and the lobbyists behind them had clairovoyance to see the rise of the SUV. According to the link you posted, the laws basically began in the early 1990's. Yet the SUV as a significant percentage of vehicles sold (unless you want to count minivans!) did not occur until the late 1990's.
And of course, reality also shows us that there is no pervasive helmet laws in the US. According to http://www.gwrra.org/helmetlaws.html :...no state has a universal bicycle helmet law. Only 17 states and the District of Columbia have statewide bicycle helmet laws, and they apply only to young riders. Local ordinances in a few states require bicycle helmets for some or all riders.
And finally, according to both my link and your link these laws are nearly universally aimed at children, not adults. Further, many of these laws also contain provisions for mandating the use of helmets when roller skating -- in particular inline skates. In my experience most "rollerblading" is not done out where the big mean SUVs roam, but on boardwalks and other off-the-road places.
Thus, your premise that this would not work in the is unfounded by your own evidence. I will stipulate that it would likely not work in several particular cities such as Seattle. Though that is due to the steep roads you'll find there and in many west coastal cities. It likely would not work in the southern states because of the temperatures there. Europe's recent heat wave was generally met with an raised eyebrow of "you call that hot" by many in the SW United States. I actually had to explain to people in the northern US that Europe generally doesn't see temperatures that we get routinely in the summer "up here".
So yes there are valid reasons it may not be very successful here in the US, but the SUV is not one of them.
And the real reason for the laws is not due to cars at all, but in most cases due to nannys who failed to impress upon their children the importance fo safety and then lost them when their own children were not doing what the law would theoretically had them do. We need to quit using the law as compensation for not teaching our own children responsible behaviour.
Actually, you can buy profit. Indeed, that is what drives long term stock markets as well as venture capital markets. Buying stock in a company that pays dividends is buying profit: you purchase a right to some of thee company's profit.
Venture capitalists buy future profit in companies.
Also, if you were offered a million or so dollars for your toenails, you'd not sell them?
And finally, if one could buy "A profound sense of well being", why would one not want to? I submit that people have indeed purchased it and by definition those that have had no remorse. Aside from the obvious drug jokes it could entail, of course.
I purchased some gifts for my wife and children for Christmas and in so doing acquired a profound sense of well being.
Well, a meteor strike could wipe out life on Earth, so let's not worry about dioxyn, PCBs, air pollution, or greenhouse gas emissions. And what's with those whiners in Bhopal, India? So what if Union Carbide killed thousands. Earthquakes kill thousands of people, so why should Union Carbide have to be concerned with safety?"
One straw man can not be refuted by another straw man. They just make hay togther.
Further, doing research into Global Cooling tells you some
interesting data. Such as the drop of global temperature from the 30's through the 70's amounted to a drop that is strikingly similar to the amount we are told the Earth will supposedly warm (or has depending in which peer rviwed article) as a result of "man"; or according to the link you gave, is exactly the same.
Reference please.
See your own references, it's in there. As is much of the rest of what I posted. For example:
Ask yourself this: If over the course of 70 years (1930s to 1970s) we saw a.6o C drop w/o disastrous effect, why should a.6o C increase cause it?
Global average temperatures _increased_ during the last century. What's
the source of your data? Ask _yourself_ this: what benefit do the people
who feed you these lies gain from you (a) accepting it, and (b) convincing
you to humiliate yourself in public like this?
Again, this is shown in the data provided by your links and the
references from them. So if that was a lie, and you "fed" it to me,
what did you gain by it?
The latest report by the Hadley Center (name ring any bells?) Shows the
decrease in average global temperature from the late 1930's to the
early-mid 1970's very clearly. How is it you missed that bit of data? Did
you not read the links and references you yourself put out in support of
your arguments? Read the freaking graphs, man. Even better, read the data.
Much of your post is trollish cursing and ranting, not to mention being
littered with ad hominems. But for the sake of others, I'll bypass that
and settle in on a few of your outlandish claims to demonstrate the points
you sought to avoid.
I find it very interesting that the very links you provide provided me
with the data you now call bogus (to put it nicely). A prime example.
People like you unfairly give global warming a bad name.
Personally, a portion of my work is in researching ways to
induce global warming intentionally. That's how I know that models are not
the holy grails you hold them to be. For example, some models (indeed
many) have taken the assumption (models are all about assumptions whether
it be conomic, climate, etc.) of an annual 1% increase in atmospheric CO2.
These models will perform exactly as expected and output correct data. And
yet be dead wrong. These models in particular failed to predict the CO2
increase correctly, even if mathematically correct. Real world data shows
an annual increase of about half the amount used in the models. All
predictions and conclusions drawn from them are thus fully invalid when
applied to real world climates.
Further, most models also have been shown to be extremely sensitive to the
initial conditions (as is to be expected), given them a range differential
of between 2 and 18 degrees depending on the particular models used. IMO,
only a fool would use such widely varying ranges and predict a 2-3 or 2-5
degree increase in temperatues.
It would be like predicting someone will win an election by 2 points given
a poll with a margin of error of say 9 points and a statistical dead heat.
Further, you write as if a model simulates the whole world over a time
period. Most do not. Indeed, the Hadley
Center Explanation of Modelling, the global model is a model running
models, and at very coarse resolution. Given the sensitivity to initial
conditions and variances, you enter a potential positive feedback of
extremes.
I'm not sure if this includes thermal expansion. If so, the rise would be >60m from Antarctica's melting.
This isn't going to happen overnight. But at the current rates of anthropogenic climate change, it's on its way.
Real world data reported in respected peer review journals clearly show that the Antarctic has been getting colder in the last several decades and continues to do so. Numerous global warming alarmists (aka disasterbators) have claimed (in respected peer review journals) this is due to global warming.
Nature and Science have published at least two papers I am aware of that indicate that the Antarctic continant has decreased by about.7 degrees C per year since the 1960s, and that the ice sheet has been thickening to the tune of 15 billion tons per year.
Most of this is in the Western sheet, which had been melting for about 10,000 years. It is now growing.
Furthermore, according to NASA's Hanse, himself a proponent of "global warming" and one of the sources for the IPCC reports has shown that the rate of global warming is declining having peaked in 1980.
So, given what we know as fact: decreasing antarctic temperatures. How do you propose the Antarctic pole melting to occur "at the current rates(sic) of [anthropogenic] climate change?
Add in one of the major proponents of the anthropogenic cause claiming the rate of warming has declined. Now how will the melting of the Southern Polar cap happen? Now, add in the increasing leels of ice in Antarctic glaciers.
I'd have to say, based on peer reviewed, respected journals articles, your theory of the current rate of anthropogenic climate change causing a melting of the Antarctic ice cap... doesn't hold water.
Regarding your data on Greenlan's ice cap. Well, again you should get current.
The Greenland coastal temperatures have followed the early 20th century global warming trend. Since 1940, however, the Greenland coastal stations data have undergone predominantly a cooling trend. At the summit of the Greenland ice sheet the summer average temperature has decreased at the rate of 2.2 C per decade since the beginning of the measurements in 1987. This suggests that the Greenland ice sheet and coastal regions are not following the current global warming trend. A considerable and rapid warming over all of coastal Greenland occurred in the 1920s when the average annual surface air temperature rose between 2 and 4 C in less than ten years (at some stations the increase in winter temperature was as high as 6 C). This rapid warming, at a time when the change in anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases was well below the current level, suggests a high natural variability in the regional climate. High anticorrelations (r = -0.84 to -0.93) between the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) index and Greenland temperature time series suggest a physical connection between these processes. Therefore, the future changes in the NAO and Northern Annular Mode may be of critical consequence to the future temperature forcing of the Greenland ice sheet melt rates. -- http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/clim/200 4/00000063/F0020001/05140445;jsessionid=1c5j0gvzun d7i.henrietta
That is a study done by scientists at Los Alamos. In essence, the point we are looking for is this one:average temperatures in Greenland have been falling at the rather steep rate of 2.2 degrees Celsius since 1987.
So it's getting colder in Greenland. Sounds familiar. Actually, there is another point you get from the abstract above. In the 1920's Greenland saw tremendous rises in temperatures -more so than is predicted by proponents of anthropogenic global warming disasters (disasterbators). Yet, it's still pretty darned icy last I knew.
And that's not all. "Peer reviewed" journals also had calls to herald the global drops in temperatures. Presidents and leaders were warned to start stockpiling food for the comming shortages. Check Wikipedia for a starting point. Science, Nature, National Academy of Science, are all examples. And even then, we were told to stockpile food and that aerosols and pollution were to blame.
But that didn't pan out. So they got a new gig. Now it is warming (that in 99 they said would cause an ice age). Has science gotten better in the last 30 years in this field? Hardly. Now they just make up computer models, say the models predict it and call it science fact. It's like a "psychic" making mass predictions. Of course something will eventually stick. Make a thousand "models" and you can pick them over for "confirmation" as you need. Then again, a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Yet they still can't tell us next year's weather any better then the Farmer's Almanac does.
Further, doing research into Global Cooling tells you some interesting data. Such as the drop of global temperature from the 30's through the 70's amounted to a drop that is strikingly similar to the amount we are told the Earth will supposedly warm (or has depending in which peer rviwed article) as a result of "man"; or according to the link you gave, is exactly the same.
Yet, somehow we are supposed to beleive that if the Earth returned to the temperatures we had in the thirties civilization will end. That is clearly demonstrated to be bunk when looking at somewhat recent history.
Indeed, in the 1999 "study"'s conclusions the 'Greenland ice shelf falling into the sea' would introduce mass cold water into the ocean, particularly the gulf stream. This would then reduce global temperatures to the tune of (IIRC) 7-15 degrees F as it disrupted the flow of warm water.
Yet, we are supposed to believe that we can honestly conclude global average temperatures from the 1800's to today. But only when they support dire predictions. When they show a cooling, well that's just "old data". When people point this out the disasterbators say they simulated the difference in global coverage and found no difference. So, they are basing their claims of historical temperatures based on simulations, and we are to believe they can produce models to simulate temperatures to accuracy within.05 degrees C a hundred+ years ago, but can't even get within a few degrees C for next week.
Ask yourself this:
If over the course of 70 years (1930s to 1970s) we saw a.6o C drop w/o disastrous effect, why should a.6o C increase cause it?
If an increase of.6o C puts us in dangerously high temps, then where were all these dangers in the 1920's and before?
Even the FAQ you link to should give you cause for concern regading the claims' veracity. They say that urban islands "only" account for.05o C less of a warming. As if we are to say "oh well.05 isn't much" while not connecting they are talking about close to 10% of their noted differences. Accounting for urban heat islands using their own data puts their rise in temperature to be less than the drop we had in the early to mid-late 1900's.
Other data shows as much as a.3oC difference when urban centers are accounted for in thermal variations (NASA GISS) resulting in a
For example, if you get a DUI, you'll very likely lose your license. You may also be prohibited from drinking. It varies by the state and circumstances. Now say you go to a bar and drink. You probably won't get caught. But if you go to a bar and are involved in a bar fight, now you'll be dragged off for VOP.
Now let us say you were NOT told to not drink. Yet you went to a bar, got drunk, and got into a fight. Are you going to get slammed for violation of parole? Yes, yes you are. Why? becuase getting arrested is a violation of your parole. Getting in drunken fights "in puBlik-" is a VOP even if you are out on parole after having committed embezzlement or fraud - things that likely had nothing to do with getting drunk.
So I don't think your example flies very well.
If he didn't have the beer, they would have needed real evidence to arrest him.
And therein lies the crux of the problem. It is merely an excuse to create something else for you to get busted for. Something that is otherwise perfectly legal and not harmful to others is now, for you specifically, illegal.
The example case you give above (the Ricci case), you demonstrate how such things are tools for abuse of power. Remember, the only power a government has over you is to make you into a criminal. They have no authority over peolpe who "follow the rules". Anytime they make it easier to trump something up or get you more than once for the same thing, you have a dangerous increase in "police state" mentality.
And no, I don't mean "Double Jeopardy" (which or course by that I don't mean the game show either.;) ) statutes. I mean the case where one action can be construed as multiple *separate* crimes crimes, they can then charge you for multiple crimes.
Essentially, I see such "punishments" as a result of laziness on the part of the sentencing entity. The judges are failing to apply reasonable standards and realize that online behaviour is fundamentally not different from offline behaviour.
If a person is convicted of pedophile behaviour with a child he/she met in the shopping mall, do they the judges ban them from shopping malls? If they met them at a McDonalds, do they get banned from fast food restaraunts? Not that I am aware of.
If someone "knocks over" a convenience store or a bank, do they get banned from entering convenience stores or banks? Again, not that I know of. With possibly one or two rare exceptions I don't know of any offline crime where the convicted is banned from all locations similar to the crime scene.
So why do we suddenly think that banning pedophiles and crackers from the Internet, or phones, or other communicative technology is useful or effective? In my opinion the idea that the Internet is somehow different and that you can be banned from using it by committing a crime on it (or using it to get information to commit a crime) is dangerous to freedom of speech and information. Indeed, may even serve to perpetuate crime.
In today's society it is becoming more and more commonplace to carry out one's business, education, and entertainment online. From online banking and bill pay to online shopping, getting one's degree or a job. Even the local job service and unemployment offices are online.
As the value of the Internet in our daily lives increases such a sentence -if enforcable and enforced- is a damming one in that it begins to perpetuate a class of have-nots with regard to such cost savings and opportunities. Increasingly with government going online the government itself would then be creating a class of citizen that is effectively banned from many government services.
Ultimately it will be impossible to monitor one's access to the Internet, chatrooms, etc. w/o constant supervision. This will naturally lead to a lack of respect for such actions/penalties causing a further drop in respect for law in general. As this increases additional crimes will be committed. Not unlike when as a child if you got "sentenced" to being house restriction but mom and dad were not around to enforce it you began to realize it was toothless and didn't care about it.
Only by treating "cracking" the same as we would such an act in the offline world (breaking and entering, theft, fraud, etc.) can we expect our laws and punishments to be anything near rational and respectable. Banning pedophiles from the place they met their victims doesn't change the pedophile's behaviour.
Just like (IMO) it is wrong to be able to patent something you can do online that you can't get a patent for doing in a "brick and mortar" store, it is wrong to view crime online as different than crime offline. Theft is theft, fraud is fraud, and pedophilia is pedophilia. The Internet doesn't change that.
They have no idea what ABS is for (neither do most adults; it's directional stability, NOT 'stopping as fast as possible').
Yet those of us who race cars on tracks use it for exactly that: stoppping as fast as possible.
Speed comes from a lack of the understanding of the implications
Hmmmm, my training said speed came from being smooth, in control, and aware of one's surroundings by looking ahead.
Want to teach situational awareness,vehicle limits, and have them enjoy it at the same time? Send them racing/ I know 10 and 12 year old kids who'd outdrive most/.-ers.
but it's rarely the rich kid who got a new small commuter car with 8 airbags and traction control who ends up splattered on a tree.
No, it's usually the rich kid who's parents buys him/her the fancy little sporty car that gets wrapped up arounda telephone pole because they have not respect for what they were given. For example, Geo Storms when they came out.
You mean like how "nuclear winter" worked, right? It was obviously not politically motivated, and nobody published peer reviewed opposition papers to it becase nuclear wintoer was *correct*, right?
Oh, wait, the "nuclear winter" stories were just that.... stories.
What about global cooling in peer reviewed publications not that long ago? Massive global population devastation through starvation to the tune of billions of people by the 80's?
Peer reviewers are not as politically motivated as you seem to suppose.
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaahahhahahahahaaaaaaaaa!
Dayum that was funny, lemme wipe the tears from my eyes. ooh boy. Oh thanks, I needed a good laugh.
Peer-review is only as right as the peers. If you think there is no politics involved, you've not been involved.
I was surprized the first time I came to know that you folks are allowed to use calculators in high school exams!!
and
In India, calculators are banned from exams/classes till high school.
emphasis added. Basically, you are saying that in India you can use calculators in high school exams, but are suprised that you can use calculators in high school exams in America?! Come on we aren't that backward!;)
That said it is a somewhat recent development. We were not allowed calulators in exams in my high school.
The problem isn't calulators, nor is it low teacher pay. It is the "universal" idea combined with teachers in a system where taking a class or two is valued more than actual teaching.
And it most definitely isn't fair not to have universal education.
No, they have universal schooling, there is a difference.
government has a duty to provide the best conditions possible for the happiness and welfare of the people,
and the best way to do so is to get out of the way.
Universal education will only happen the day we universally agree on what should be taught, when, by whom, and how.
Until then it is the greatest drag on getting a *good* education. I say this as someone who has been to schools of differing countries, and a parent who is giving up things for myself to provide a good (i.e. private) thorough education btw..
Imagine being a nerdy black kid. I was. The black kids sometimes though that I was "trying to be white" because I was good at math. The white kids often resented that I was "showing off" that I was good at math.
I was a nerdy white kid that for a while grew up in a very heavily black community. We were one of two white families in about a 6 block radius. Us nerdy types all hung together regardless of race or even sex.
Maybe you just needed to go be around "others of our kind" as in "we the nerds".;) If we could just get over the fact that yes, we all will prefer different groups (because we tend to flock together) and be ok with it (jocks vs. nerds for example), we could get over the stigma that we soemhow are "supposed" to be a like.
Different is just different. Neither good nor bad, better nor worse. Just different.
The problem with this county is that it sees education as elitist.
Well much of "it" is elitist, and I say this as a parent (yes, some of us/.-ers have f^H spawned processes). What do you expect when teachers send home a math paper graded at 45% with a big smiley and a "great job" plastered over it in red ink? WTF?! Then have the nerve to get upset that when they assinn "20 minutes of reading" as "homework" I assign a book report. Telling me I don't know what I'm doing. That ain't media, that's real life. I've had this experience at three different public schools.
...Evil genius gets the crap beat out of him by buff super guy using big guns. ...because he failed to do/account for things that non-elitists know. His arrogant "I am a genius" mentality was his undoing.
It isn't "education" that is elitist, it is the "public school system" (and "have-degrees") that is. There is a very distinct difference. Schools (suprise!) are not required to teach, according to the courts; just as the cops are not required to protect.
I have yet to see homeschooled or private schooled children demonstrate any disrespect for "education". And I deal with a lot of all three. I've seen many a public school adminstrator, politician, or public school teacher show great disrespect for the *results* of the private and home-schoolers.
We have fox news with o Riley calling Yale alumni pinheads. It's fucking Yale, YALE
He also calls himself a pinhead. What does that say for your proposition, such as it is? Graduating from Yale, Oxford, Harvard, or grade school does not indemnify one from being a pinhead. It is elitist to think otherwise. Posting on slashdot is likewise no indemnification as such, obviously.
Even on Slashdot we get into these regular retarded arguments about how your code is more important then your college degree. Never mind the good it does for society to have another person that can think outside of their narrow scope. It's this attitude that's the real problem.
At the risk of being paradoxical, it is the attitude you display that is the root of the problem. There is nothing wrong with generalists or specialists. What is wrong is the attitude that only those who paid the piper of debt to go get a piece of paer can think out of the box. There are very, very few people who can be specialists AND generalists. It is wrong to force everyone into that mold they will never fit.
Truth be told most OOtB thinkers are those who spent the least time in academia.
Academia has a way of being very rigid and resistant to OOtB thinking and change. It is one reason most breakthroughs and scientific inspiration come from those who have not been indoctrinated into a given culture. My first full-time IT job I earned (a decade or so ago) because I was self-taught, not degreed. They knew I did it because I wanted to not becuase an adviser said there was money in IT, and because what I was doing was not yet into universities.
Why does it take on average 5.x years to get what used to be called a "four year degree"? Two reasons.
1. Poor teachers in public schools. I don't mean monetarily poor; I mean poor performance. Teachers in PS systems are kept/retained/gained based on them taking classes. Not on their ability to teach what they know and to have the knowledge to impart. I'd rather have someone with a B.S. in math teaching my kid math than some "teacher" with a doctoral degree in "education". At least the math guy knows his subject.
2. Colleges are forced to try to produce "generalists". You have all this "liberal arts" crap being forced onto people. Face facts. Our society was built in overwhelmingly large portions due to specialists. Our technology, indeed our very civilization depends on specialists.
Why should I have to spend about HALF of my time in "college" (and half my money!) on things like art appreciation, foreign languages
Funny how the/. crowd seems to hone in on the paper trail is the audit fallacy. Fallacy!? How dare I? Easily, I dare
A ballot printout is simply an output device just like a screen is. So I get my printout and go home. My candidate loses. What am I to do? Certainly you must take my ballot because you cant let me take it home and then trust it as a reasonable source for recount.
So, you take my ballot printed up by the computer. Now, since I made it into the booth I've clearly passed the "qualified" barrier.
So what is to prevent the machine from printing multiple ballots, and altering the second one which it printed on a different printer? It wouldn't have to do much to nullify a certain percentage of votes; it'd be one to one.
The ballots will need to be printed such that the computer ballot counting machine can read them in. After all if the ballot is merely a paper record to be used as a backup, your ballot is worthless.
Why? Go back to the top: the printer is simply an output screen. It can print a different ballot than what goes into the db.
"But people check their ballots!" you say? Here, I've got some oceanfont property in Montana to sell... cheap. A small percentage will, and even then that percentage will decrease over the next couple cycles. Some places literally have elections every year so in those places that quantity will decrease quite fast. As people are satisfied their ballots are clean they'll stop looking. The rest, given the hype about how paper ballots are the solution, will simply trust it. Assuming of course that the computer code matches what the printout says.
As a coder, I control what the ballot outputs. Say I put the to-be-read-by-machine-for-counting code into, for example, a barcode. And in humant readable (i.e. text) I print who you actually voted for, while in the barcode I out the other candidate. You see the ballot as correct, but it is not correct when read.
Given the margins in todays big elections, it would not take much to swing it. When dealing with machine counting of paper ballots even those printed by machine; how much error would be expected by the average person; 1% 2%? Can that change the outcome? I think we all know that answer to be an affirmative in many elections.
What would be the risk of getting caught in the above scheme? Let us assume that one in five people will check their ballot (assuming that this visual check matches what the ballot-counting machine reads), and I only need to alter one in a hundred. What are the odds someone who checks will see an incorrect ballot? Further as a result of that how many "irregularities" would thus be reported?
If I alter 1%, but only one in four of that 1% get noticed, the irregularity is a quarter point. Only desperate people will cling to that as evidence of deliberate tampering in an age where computers just break, screw things up, and so on. And the courts would likely not rule there was tampering w/o hard evidence which would be difficult to get given the low percentage of irregualrities.
"But we can make it so that the output of the ballot can be visually corroborated!" Bunk. All my votes have been cast on punch card ballots. You know, paper ones. As soon as I remove the ballot from the machine and look at it, I have no way of knowing if it matches. Sure some ballots you could in theory. But look at all the problems people already have with those.
So while paper ballot printout can be useful, it is no solution to the problem. There is but one solution to secure computerized ballot counting. Open source software. That is the lesson in this article. As the man said it could not be hidden from anyone with source code access.
If you want to lobby, lobby for open source code. Lobbying for paper trails as the solution will simply hide it in a different way. A false sense of security, is all that is.
The fact is, we're living in a one party system; democracy is dead in america and has been for a long time.
Given this guy's admitted issues with the guy he accuses, I could not agree. The affidavit can not be biased nor unbiased, but it's author certaily can.
Slashdot Mirror
A simple solid state chemical "reactor" that was able to extract and compress (well contain expansion) CO2, for example, would be a possibility. Combined with a pressure relief valve and a rather singificant supply you have a renewable supply and relatively safe mechanism.
Then again, I'd like to see a shift from solar panels as the primary fuel source. As has been proven, we can extract fuel from the martian atmosphere by taking hydrogen gas, gelled with methane to limit boiloff, and combining it with martian CO2. This would provide significantly more power.
This power could be supplemented by solar to extend the life of the rover once the feedstock was used up.
Another interesting scenario I've been speccing out is to send a slightly larger two component system that has a "fueling station" where the main fuel reactor resides, combined with a rover that possibly used an internal combustion engine (ICE) of say methane or oxygen/methane to provide significantly larger amounts of power to the rover. Again, once the feedstock has been used up, solar cells would then take over as primary power for the secondary systems (drive, comms, etc.).
For example, if the ICE was used to power a generator leaving the motors driven by electrical systems the last step of the combustion driven power system could be used to deploy the solar cells. and detach from the rover assembly. In this manner, you tremendously extend the life of the rover by keeping the solar cells protected for the initial part of the mission.
The tornado like winds that can be caused by dust devils is something that was discussed by NASA back in April and surely seems like the real answer:
...
;)
You misrepresented or misunderstood what the article you reference said. It said that the dust devils on mars can be taller than earthbound tornados, not that the winds are equivalent. Remember that the atmospheric pressure on Mars is so much less that their duststorms are no more than a gentle breeze on earth. If the winds were truly tornado-like, how would you expect the very lightweight (on Mars) rover to stay put??
I'm not sure why they think its such a mystery now
Probably because the article you reference had this to say about the dust devils and the results of their electrical charge: increased dust adhesion to space suits and equipment.
So the DDs would likely lead to a higher level of dust on the panels due to the electrical charge.
You know, I expect slashdot posters to generally not read the article in the original story, but to not read the article you post yourself? Come on!
The rover could do the same thing by tilting it's panels vertically and then letting rip with the u-sound. About one x-ducer per square meter is all it would take.
:)
Not a terrible idea overall, but the mechanism to rotate the panels encounters the same basic problem of mass/mechanisms. They'd have to be engineered such that you could be assured they would always return to the proper position. Again, the failure result questions.
If the panels don't rotate back due to a failure, you'd likely lose much more power than just letting them get dirty over time. Better to have a power loss over time, than to have the rover lose power in week one because the panels did not rotate back to the proper position.
I still like your solution for your mower though.
Another lame "blame the SUV" post. Check reality and you'll find that the rise of helmet laws predates the rise of the SUV. Note I specifically say "the rise of". The SUV itself dates back some 80 years.
...no state has a universal bicycle helmet law. Only 17 states and the District of Columbia have statewide bicycle helmet laws, and they apply only to young riders. Local ordinances in a few states require bicycle helmets for some or all riders.
Simple logic really. If the SUV rise comes after the helmet law rise, then SUVs can not be the blame unless you want to claim the lawmakers and the lobbyists behind them had clairovoyance to see the rise of the SUV. According to the link you posted, the laws basically began in the early 1990's. Yet the SUV as a significant percentage of vehicles sold (unless you want to count minivans!) did not occur until the late 1990's.
And of course, reality also shows us that there is no pervasive helmet laws in the US. According to
http://www.gwrra.org/helmetlaws.html :
And finally, according to both my link and your link these laws are nearly universally aimed at children, not adults. Further, many of these laws also contain provisions for mandating the use of helmets when roller skating -- in particular inline skates. In my experience most "rollerblading" is not done out where the big mean SUVs roam, but on boardwalks and other off-the-road places.
Thus, your premise that this would not work in the is unfounded by your own evidence. I will stipulate that it would likely not work in several particular cities such as Seattle. Though that is due to the steep roads you'll find there and in many west coastal cities. It likely would not work in the southern states because of the temperatures there. Europe's recent heat wave was generally met with an raised eyebrow of "you call that hot" by many in the SW United States. I actually had to explain to people in the northern US that Europe generally doesn't see temperatures that we get routinely in the summer "up here".
So yes there are valid reasons it may not be very successful here in the US, but the SUV is not one of them.
And the real reason for the laws is not due to cars at all, but in most cases due to nannys who failed to impress upon their children the importance fo safety and then lost them when their own children were not doing what the law would theoretically had them do. We need to quit using the law as compensation for not teaching our own children responsible behaviour.
Actually, you can buy profit. Indeed, that is what drives long term stock markets as well as venture capital markets. Buying stock in a company that pays dividends is buying profit: you purchase a right to some of thee company's profit.
Venture capitalists buy future profit in companies.
Also, if you were offered a million or so dollars for your toenails, you'd not sell them?
And finally, if one could buy "A profound sense of well being", why would one not want to? I submit that people have indeed purchased it and by definition those that have had no remorse. Aside from the obvious drug jokes it could entail, of course.
I purchased some gifts for my wife and children for Christmas and in so doing acquired a profound sense of well being.
Not to mention "HI I am posting the same thing over and over and calling anyone who disgarees with me names" as an indicator of psuedoscience.
Well, a meteor strike could wipe out life on Earth, so let's not worry about dioxyn, PCBs, air pollution, or greenhouse gas emissions. And what's with those whiners in Bhopal, India? So what if Union Carbide killed thousands. Earthquakes kill thousands of people, so why should Union Carbide have to be concerned with safety?"
One straw man can not be refuted by another straw man. They just make hay togther.
See your own references, it's in there. As is much of the rest of what I
posted. For example:
Again, this is shown in the data provided by your links and the
references from them. So if that was a lie, and you "fed" it to me,
what did you gain by it?
The latest report by the Hadley Center (name ring any bells?) Shows the
decrease in average global temperature from the late 1930's to the
early-mid 1970's very clearly. How is it you missed that bit of data? Did
you not read the links and references you yourself put out in support of
your arguments? Read the freaking graphs, man. Even better, read the data.
Much of your post is trollish cursing and ranting, not to mention being
littered with ad hominems. But for the sake of others, I'll bypass that
and settle in on a few of your outlandish claims to demonstrate the points
you sought to avoid.
I find it very interesting that the very links you provide provided me
with the data you now call bogus (to put it nicely). A prime example.
People like you unfairly give global warming a bad name.
Personally, a portion of my work is in researching ways to
induce global warming intentionally. That's how I know that models are not
the holy grails you hold them to be. For example, some models (indeed
many) have taken the assumption (models are all about assumptions whether
it be conomic, climate, etc.) of an annual 1% increase in atmospheric CO2.
These models will perform exactly as expected and output correct data. And
yet be dead wrong. These models in particular failed to predict the CO2
increase correctly, even if mathematically correct. Real world data shows
an annual increase of about half the amount used in the models. All
predictions and conclusions drawn from them are thus fully invalid when
applied to real world climates.
Further, most models also have been shown to be extremely sensitive to the
initial conditions (as is to be expected), given them a range differential
of between 2 and 18 degrees depending on the particular models used. IMO,
only a fool would use such widely varying ranges and predict a 2-3 or 2-5
degree increase in temperatues.
It would be like predicting someone will win an election by 2 points given
a poll with a margin of error of say 9 points and a statistical dead heat.
Further, you write as if a model simulates the whole world over a time
period. Most do not. Indeed, the Hadley
Center Explanation of Modelling, the global model is a model running
models, and at very coarse resolution. Given the sensitivity to initial
conditions and variances, you enter a potential positive feedback of
extremes.
Real world data reported in respected peer review journals clearly show that the Antarctic has been getting colder in the last several decades and continues to do so. Numerous global warming alarmists (aka disasterbators) have claimed (in respected peer review journals) this is due to global warming.
Nature and Science have published at least two papers I am aware of that indicate that the Antarctic continant has decreased by about
Most of this is in the Western sheet, which had been melting for about 10,000 years. It is now growing.
Furthermore, according to NASA's Hanse, himself a proponent of "global warming" and one of the sources for the IPCC reports has shown that the rate of global warming is declining having peaked in 1980.
So, given what we know as fact: decreasing antarctic temperatures. How do you propose the Antarctic pole melting to occur "at the current rates(sic) of [anthropogenic] climate change?
Add in one of the major proponents of the anthropogenic cause claiming the rate of warming has declined. Now how will the melting of the Southern Polar cap happen? Now, add in the increasing leels of ice in Antarctic glaciers.
I'd have to say, based on peer reviewed, respected journals articles, your theory of the current rate of anthropogenic climate change causing a melting of the Antarctic ice cap... doesn't hold water.
Regarding your data on Greenlan's ice cap. Well, again you should get current.
That is a study done by scientists at Los Alamos. In essence, the point we are looking for is this one
So it's getting colder in Greenland. Sounds familiar. Actually, there is another point you get from the abstract above. In the 1920's Greenland saw tremendous rises in temperatures -more so than is predicted by proponents of anthropogenic global warming disasters (disasterbators). Yet, it's still pretty darned icy last I knew.
thirty years of research by peer-reviewed scientists
.05 degrees C a hundred+ years ago, but can't even get within a few degrees C for next week.
.6o C drop w/o disastrous effect, why should a .6o C increase cause it?
.6o C puts us in dangerously high temps, then where were all these dangers in the 1920's and before?
.05o C less of a warming. As if we are to say "oh well .05 isn't much" while not connecting they are talking about close to 10% of their noted differences. Accounting for urban heat islands using their own data puts their rise in temperature to be less than the drop we had in the early to mid-late 1900's.
.3oC difference when urban centers are accounted for in thermal variations (NASA GISS) resulting in a
What really frightens me is that since I started following the science of this stuff in the mid 80s,
Ah, so you missed the 70's when the same groups of people were telling us about the cooling we were supposedly causing.
Here is a Newsweek article from 1975:
Global Cooling Newsweek Article
And that's not all. "Peer reviewed" journals also had calls to herald the global drops in temperatures. Presidents and leaders were warned to start stockpiling food for the comming shortages. Check Wikipedia
for a starting point. Science, Nature, National Academy of Science, are all examples. And even then, we were told to stockpile food and that aerosols and pollution were to blame.
But that didn't pan out. So they got a new gig. Now it is warming (that in 99 they said would cause an ice age). Has science gotten better in the last 30 years in this field? Hardly. Now they just make up computer models, say the models predict it and call it science fact. It's like a "psychic" making mass predictions. Of course something will eventually stick. Make a thousand "models" and you can pick them over for "confirmation" as you need. Then again, a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Yet they still can't tell us next year's weather any better then the Farmer's Almanac does.
Further, doing research into Global Cooling tells you some interesting data. Such as the drop of global temperature from the 30's through the 70's amounted to a drop that is strikingly similar to the amount we are told the Earth will supposedly warm (or has depending in which peer rviwed article) as a result of "man"; or according to the link you gave, is exactly the same.
Yet, somehow we are supposed to beleive that if the Earth returned to the temperatures we had in the thirties civilization will end. That is clearly demonstrated to be bunk when looking at somewhat recent history.
Indeed, in the 1999 "study"'s conclusions the 'Greenland ice shelf falling into the sea' would introduce mass cold water into the ocean, particularly the gulf stream. This would then reduce global temperatures to the tune of (IIRC) 7-15 degrees F as it disrupted the flow of warm water.
Yet, we are supposed to believe that we can honestly conclude global average temperatures from the 1800's to today. But only when they support dire predictions. When they show a cooling, well that's just "old data". When people point this out the disasterbators say they simulated the difference in global coverage and found no difference. So, they are basing their claims of historical temperatures based on simulations, and we are to believe they can produce models to simulate temperatures to accuracy within
Ask yourself this:
If over the course of 70 years (1930s to 1970s) we saw a
If an increase of
Even the FAQ you link to should give you cause for concern regading the claims' veracity. They say that urban islands "only" account for
Other data shows as much as a
75 cents per year for a domain sounds like a good measure against those who register a bunch of domains then sit on them.
The way that domains costing 35 DOLLARS per year did, right? If paying $35/year didn't stop it, what drug makes you think $0.75 will?
For example, if you get a DUI, you'll very likely lose your license. You may also be prohibited from drinking. It varies by the state and circumstances. Now say you go to a bar and drink. You probably won't get caught. But if you go to a bar and are involved in a bar fight, now you'll be dragged off for VOP.
;) ) statutes. I mean the case where one action can be construed as multiple *separate* crimes crimes, they can then charge you for multiple crimes.
Now let us say you were NOT told to not drink. Yet you went to a bar, got drunk, and got into a fight. Are you going to get slammed for violation of parole? Yes, yes you are. Why? becuase getting arrested is a violation of your parole. Getting in drunken fights "in puBlik-" is a VOP even if you are out on parole after having committed embezzlement or fraud - things that likely had nothing to do with getting drunk.
So I don't think your example flies very well.
If he didn't have the beer, they would have needed real evidence to arrest him.
And therein lies the crux of the problem. It is merely an excuse to create something else for you to get busted for. Something that is otherwise perfectly legal and not harmful to others is now, for you specifically, illegal.
The example case you give above (the Ricci case), you demonstrate how such things are tools for abuse of power. Remember, the only power a government has over you is to make you into a criminal. They have no authority over peolpe who "follow the rules". Anytime they make it easier to trump something up or get you more than once for the same thing, you have a dangerous increase in "police state" mentality.
And no, I don't mean "Double Jeopardy" (which or course by that I don't mean the game show either.
Essentially, I see such "punishments" as a result of laziness on the part of the sentencing entity. The judges are failing to apply reasonable standards and realize that online behaviour is fundamentally not different from offline behaviour.
If a person is convicted of pedophile behaviour with a child he/she met in the shopping mall, do they the judges ban them from shopping malls? If they met them at a McDonalds, do they get banned from fast food restaraunts? Not that I am aware of.
If someone "knocks over" a convenience store or a bank, do they get banned from entering convenience stores or banks? Again, not that I know of. With possibly one or two rare exceptions I don't know of any offline crime where the convicted is banned from all locations similar to the crime scene.
So why do we suddenly think that banning pedophiles and crackers from the Internet, or phones, or other communicative technology is useful or effective? In my opinion the idea that the Internet is somehow different and that you can be banned from using it by committing a crime on it (or using it to get information to commit a crime) is dangerous to freedom of speech and information. Indeed, may even serve to perpetuate crime.
In today's society it is becoming more and more commonplace to carry out one's business, education, and entertainment online. From online banking and bill pay to online shopping, getting one's degree or a job. Even the local job service and unemployment offices are online.
As the value of the Internet in our daily lives increases such a sentence -if enforcable and enforced- is a damming one in that it begins to perpetuate a class of have-nots with regard to such cost savings and opportunities. Increasingly with government going online the government itself would then be creating a class of citizen that is effectively banned from many government services.
Ultimately it will be impossible to monitor one's access to the Internet, chatrooms, etc. w/o constant supervision. This will naturally lead to a lack of respect for such actions/penalties causing a further drop in respect for law in general. As this increases additional crimes will be committed. Not unlike when as a child if you got "sentenced" to being house restriction but mom and dad were not around to enforce it you began to realize it was toothless and didn't care about it.
Only by treating "cracking" the same as we would such an act in the offline world (breaking and entering, theft, fraud, etc.) can we expect our laws and punishments to be anything near rational and respectable. Banning pedophiles from the place they met their victims doesn't change the pedophile's behaviour.
Just like (IMO) it is wrong to be able to patent something you can do online that you can't get a patent for doing in a "brick and mortar" store, it is wrong to view crime online as different than crime offline. Theft is theft, fraud is fraud, and pedophilia is pedophilia. The Internet doesn't change that.
Not Speeding != Safely driving.
/.-ers.
Agreed.
They have no idea what ABS is for (neither do most adults; it's directional stability, NOT 'stopping as fast as possible').
Yet those of us who race cars on tracks use it for exactly that: stoppping as fast as possible.
Speed comes from a lack of the understanding of the implications
Hmmmm, my training said speed came from being smooth, in control, and aware of one's surroundings by looking ahead.
Want to teach situational awareness,vehicle limits, and have them enjoy it at the same time? Send them racing/ I know 10 and 12 year old kids who'd outdrive most
but it's rarely the rich kid who got a new small commuter car with 8 airbags and traction control who ends up splattered on a tree.
No, it's usually the rich kid who's parents buys him/her the fancy little sporty car that gets wrapped up arounda telephone pole because they have not respect for what they were given. For example, Geo Storms when they came out.
You mean like how "nuclear winter" worked, right? It was obviously not politically motivated, and nobody published peer reviewed opposition papers to it becase nuclear wintoer was *correct*, right?
.... stories.
Oh, wait, the "nuclear winter" stories were just that
What about global cooling in peer reviewed publications not that long ago? Massive global population devastation through starvation to the tune of billions of people by the 80's?
Peer reviewers are not as politically motivated as you seem to suppose.
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaahahhahahahahaaaaaaaaa!
Dayum that was funny, lemme wipe the tears from my eyes. ooh boy. Oh thanks, I needed a good laugh.
Peer-review is only as right as the peers. If you think there is no politics involved, you've not been involved.
So Clinton was beholden to the same people? The current administration is not the first to reject Kyoto.
and SOME studies suggest that cigarettes cause health problems.
and SOME people smoke several packs a day for 50+ years without a hint of cancer or any other smoking-related diseases.
some.
The point? You can get a study to show practically anything these days. Especially if there is politics and/or money behind it.
Real science begins with an assumption of ignorance. Popular global warming "science" begins with an assumption of complete and accurate knowledge.
part of the No Child Left Behind = No Gifted Child Gets Ahead program
Too late. It happened over 15 years ago. I was in the "gifted" programs from day one until they killed them because it made others feel inadequate.
I was surprized the first time I came to know that you folks are allowed to use calculators in high school exams!!
;)
and
In India, calculators are banned from exams/classes till high school.
emphasis added. Basically, you are saying that in India you can use calculators in high school exams, but are suprised that you can use calculators in high school exams in America?! Come on we aren't that backward!
That said it is a somewhat recent development. We were not allowed calulators in exams in my high school.
The problem isn't calulators, nor is it low teacher pay. It is the "universal" idea combined with teachers in a system where taking a class or two is valued more than actual teaching.
And it most definitely isn't fair not to have universal education.
No, they have universal schooling, there is a difference.
government has a duty to provide the best conditions possible for the happiness and welfare of the people,
and the best way to do so is to get out of the way.
Universal education will only happen the day we universally agree on what should be taught, when, by whom, and how.
Until then it is the greatest drag on getting a *good* education. I say this as someone who has been to schools of differing countries, and a parent who is giving up things for myself to provide a good (i.e. private) thorough education btw..
Imagine being a nerdy black kid. I was. The black kids sometimes though that I was "trying to be white" because I was good at math. The white kids often resented that I was "showing off" that I was good at math.
;) If we could just get over the fact that yes, we all will prefer different groups (because we tend to flock together) and be ok with it (jocks vs. nerds for example), we could get over the stigma that we soemhow are "supposed" to be a like.
I was a nerdy white kid that for a while grew up in a very heavily black community. We were one of two white families in about a 6 block radius. Us nerdy types all hung together regardless of race or even sex.
Maybe you just needed to go be around "others of our kind" as in "we the nerds".
Different is just different. Neither good nor bad, better nor worse. Just different.
The problem with this county is that it sees education as elitist.
/.-ers have f^H spawned processes). What do you expect when teachers send home a math paper graded at 45% with a big smiley and a "great job" plastered over it in red ink? WTF?! Then have the nerve to get upset that when they assinn "20 minutes of reading" as "homework" I assign a book report. Telling me I don't know what I'm doing. That ain't media, that's real life. I've had this experience at three different public schools.
...Evil genius gets the crap beat out of him by buff super guy using big guns. ...because he failed to do/account for things that non-elitists know. His arrogant "I am a genius" mentality was his undoing.
Well much of "it" is elitist, and I say this as a parent (yes, some of us
It isn't "education" that is elitist, it is the "public school system" (and "have-degrees") that is. There is a very distinct difference. Schools (suprise!) are not required to teach, according to the courts; just as the cops are not required to protect.
I have yet to see homeschooled or private schooled children demonstrate any disrespect for "education". And I deal with a lot of all three. I've seen many a public school adminstrator, politician, or public school teacher show great disrespect for the *results* of the private and home-schoolers.
We have fox news with o Riley calling Yale alumni pinheads. It's fucking Yale, YALE
He also calls himself a pinhead. What does that say for your proposition, such as it is? Graduating from Yale, Oxford, Harvard, or grade school does not indemnify one from being a pinhead. It is elitist to think otherwise. Posting on slashdot is likewise no indemnification as such, obviously.
Even on Slashdot we get into these regular retarded arguments about how your code is more important then your college degree. Never mind the good it does for society to have another person that can think outside of their narrow scope. It's this attitude that's the real problem.
At the risk of being paradoxical, it is the attitude you display that is the root of the problem. There is nothing wrong with generalists or specialists. What is wrong is the attitude that only those who paid the piper of debt to go get a piece of paer can think out of the box. There are very, very few people who can be specialists AND generalists. It is wrong to force everyone into that mold they will never fit.
Truth be told most OOtB thinkers are those who spent the least time in academia.
Academia has a way of being very rigid and resistant to OOtB thinking and change. It is one reason most breakthroughs and scientific inspiration come from those who have not been indoctrinated into a given culture. My first full-time IT job I earned (a decade or so ago) because I was self-taught, not degreed. They knew I did it because I wanted to not becuase an adviser said there was money in IT, and because what I was doing was not yet into universities.
Why does it take on average 5.x years to get what used to be called a "four year degree"? Two reasons.
1. Poor teachers in public schools. I don't mean monetarily poor; I mean poor performance. Teachers in PS systems are kept/retained/gained based on them taking classes. Not on their ability to teach what they know and to have the knowledge to impart. I'd rather have someone with a B.S. in math teaching my kid math than some "teacher" with a doctoral degree in "education". At least the math guy knows his subject.
2. Colleges are forced to try to produce "generalists". You have all this "liberal arts" crap being forced onto people. Face facts. Our society was built in overwhelmingly large portions due to specialists. Our technology, indeed our very civilization depends on specialists.
Why should I have to spend about HALF of my time in "college" (and half my money!) on things like art appreciation, foreign languages
Funny how the /. crowd seems to hone in on the paper trail is the audit fallacy. Fallacy!? How dare I? Easily, I dare
... cheap. A small percentage will, and even then that percentage will decrease over the next couple cycles. Some places literally have elections every year so in those places that quantity will decrease quite fast. As people are satisfied their ballots are clean they'll stop looking. The rest, given the hype about how paper ballots are the solution, will simply trust it. Assuming of course that the computer code matches what the printout says.
A ballot printout is simply an output device just like a screen is. So I get my printout and go home. My candidate loses. What am I to do? Certainly you must take my ballot because you cant let me take it home and then trust it as a reasonable source for recount.
So, you take my ballot printed up by the computer. Now, since I made it into the booth I've clearly passed the "qualified" barrier.
So what is to prevent the machine from printing multiple ballots, and altering the second one which it printed on a different printer? It wouldn't have to do much to nullify a certain percentage of votes; it'd be one to one.
The ballots will need to be printed such that the computer ballot counting machine can read them in. After all if the ballot is merely a paper record to be used as a backup, your ballot is worthless.
Why? Go back to the top: the printer is simply an output screen. It can print a different ballot than what goes into the db.
"But people check their ballots!" you say? Here, I've got some oceanfont property in Montana to sell
As a coder, I control what the ballot outputs. Say I put the to-be-read-by-machine-for-counting code into, for example, a barcode. And in humant readable (i.e. text) I print who you actually voted for, while in the barcode I out the other candidate. You see the ballot as correct, but it is not correct when read.
Given the margins in todays big elections, it would not take much to swing it. When dealing with machine counting of paper ballots even those printed by machine; how much error would be expected by the average person; 1% 2%? Can that change the outcome? I think we all know that answer to be an affirmative in many elections.
What would be the risk of getting caught in the above scheme? Let us assume that one in five people will check their ballot (assuming that this visual check matches what the ballot-counting machine reads), and I only need to alter one in a hundred. What are the odds someone who checks will see an incorrect ballot? Further as a result of that how many "irregularities" would thus be reported?
If I alter 1%, but only one in four of that 1% get noticed, the irregularity is a quarter point. Only desperate people will cling to that as evidence of deliberate tampering in an age where computers just break, screw things up, and so on. And the courts would likely not rule there was tampering w/o hard evidence which would be difficult to get given the low percentage of irregualrities.
"But we can make it so that the output of the ballot can be visually corroborated!" Bunk. All my votes have been cast on punch card ballots. You know, paper ones. As soon as I remove the ballot from the machine and look at it, I have no way of knowing if it matches. Sure some ballots you could in theory. But look at all the problems people already have with those.
So while paper ballot printout can be useful, it is no solution to the problem. There is but one solution to secure computerized ballot counting. Open source software. That is the lesson in this article. As the man said it could not be hidden from anyone with source code access.
If you want to lobby, lobby for open source code. Lobbying for paper trails as the solution will simply hide it in a different way. A false sense of security, is all that is.
The fact is, we're living in a one party system; democracy is dead in america and has been for a long time.
Given this guy's admitted issues with the guy he accuses, I could not agree. The affidavit can not be biased nor unbiased, but it's author certaily can.
The fact is, we're living in a one party system; democracy is dead in america and has been for a long time.
No that is the inevitable evolution of democracy. It isn't dead, that is an example of a *thriving* democract.
Democracy is the problem, constitutional multilateral republics fare far better.