Republicans and Democrats alike pledging to crack down on influence peddling,
Riiiight. Pardon my underwhelming response, but I seem to remember a similar effort to "crack down" on campaign finance abuse. Oh wait...that has yet to happen. And this is something else that will also probably never happen. Any elected person worth their weight in salt (literally) knows that exercising care not to bite the hand that fills the campaign trough is far more pressing than more mundane issues - like maintaining a sense of integrity. I'm filing this in the "I'll believe it when I see it" category.
A police officer "looking at me" hardly qualifies as "investigation". In case it still isn't clear, I'm referring to any willful attempt to locate, acquire, store, retrieve, or profile information on anyone without sufficient justification.
Re-read Amendment IV. If I have not done anything, the government has no grounds for investigation, and my actions should be completely free from any scrutiny.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that's all it's ultimately good for. Consider this (from the article):
Devices developed under Genoa II's predecessor -- which Sharkey also managed when he worked for the Defense Department -- were used during the invasion of Afghanistan and as part of "the continuing war on terrorism,"
As I recall, Bin Laden was captured only after a very long and expensive military effort. Oh wait...he wasn't captured. I think we can see just how effective these "intelligence" efforts will be at meeting their publicly-stated objectives.
What really bothers me is that the legislative branch made it very clear that American citizens did not want this project to continue, and yet they did it anyway. Those involved should be held in contempt.
I'd be a little concerned as well - I'd like to see a very well-defined, detailed policy regarding data logging, retention, and uses - certainly not the typical corporatespeak that plagues most "privacy policiies."
Culture is manufactured every day by companies trying to create stuff that's cool and that people will buy. It's not just about music or movies...it's about the clothing people wear, the language they use, the type of identity the seek (and the motivations behind it), and their overall behavior. The US probably has one of the most fabricated "cultures" in existence, since it's all driven by consumption.
But U.S. workers have to some extent let them get away with it.
I think there is some truth to this. On This week in Tech ( http://www.thisweekintech.com/ ), the most recent Inside the Net podcast has a very interesting interview with the founder of a website by the name of 43Folders ( http://www.43folders.com/ ), where Merlin Mann discusses this very issue.
People often feel buried because they have to spend so much time tending to their "connectedness" - email, text messages, voice mail, etc - mostly because they simply don't know how to say "no". He mentions one associate who has to contend with 300 messages per day from inside the company, and suggests that allowing this to occur (as a matter of company policy) is highly counterproductive. It's an interesting podcast.
But no more unlikely than the election being fixed for any other reason, especially considering that there's been no substantiated evidence of willful fraud.
That's a matter of interpretation. I'd suggest that voting hardware capable of producing such a mess, and that is still in use, is ample evidence of willful fraud. At a bare minimum, it's gross negligence.
Who the hell cares HOW they error? The point is that they do, and I'm quite amazed that anything this incredibly unreliable was let anywhere near an actual election. It's also a bit depressing to learn that blackboxvoting.org had to sue in order to get the logs. If this doesn't scream coverup, I don't know what does.
From the article: Note that some items were not provided to us and are ommitted from the logs.
What reason could possibly exist to justify omitting information from log entries? This isn't doing anything to instill confidence.
The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, Arthur Anderson
What an unfortunate coincidence.
Machine number 5875 in Precinct 1077 showed two different "unknown errors," listing them as "unknown error 219" and "unknown error 220."
My guess..."RandomVotecaster class improperly initialized..."
One of the least desirable actions some poll workers were taking was to perform multiple calibrations on the machines during the day, every few hours.
Um, if the machine isn't capable of "set it and forget it" operation, not to mention reliable, it should be hauled the nearest dumpster, at which point a refund should be demanded.
Hundreds of records were simply missing, not provided at all, making it impossible to complete a formal audit.
The level of contempt toward this verification process is staggering. This is depressing, I think I'll stop here.
r0t4ting or sc4ling an object? omgwtf!! that r0x!!!
I'm guessing that's exactly what they thought when putting the patent application together. It certainly would be consistent with the mentality required attempt something like this.
Interesting point, but consider this. I'm current running Fedora Core 4. The other day I thought about burning a CD to retain some backup data. Once again, I was confronted with the nastiness that requires me dork with kernal parameters, setting it to emulate SCSI. I've been through all this a couple times before, but I still haven't managed to burn the CD, because I just don't feel like messing with this stuff again.
We're LONG past this. A CD is so ubiquitous these days that there is no reason that it shouldn't be one of those things that "just work", or making it work should require a bare minimum effort.
I expect the same exact rights as if I'd purchased a printed version. Based on the overall direction we've seen recently with various DRM-related efforts, that probably isn't going to happen.
The technology might be cool, but what will keep me away is how much the so-called "content owners" are willing to be complete assholes about how the material is used, transferred, retained, etc. The technology may very well be ready, but I'm not so sure the content industry is - or ever will be.
Slashdot Mirror
Republicans and Democrats alike pledging to crack down on influence peddling,
Riiiight. Pardon my underwhelming response, but I seem to remember a similar effort to "crack down" on campaign finance abuse. Oh wait...that has yet to happen. And this is something else that will also probably never happen. Any elected person worth their weight in salt (literally) knows that exercising care not to bite the hand that fills the campaign trough is far more pressing than more mundane issues - like maintaining a sense of integrity. I'm filing this in the "I'll believe it when I see it" category.
It might also be interesting to follow the money trail to see whether or not it leads back to Redmond, WA.
2008 will be interesting. In 2004 we re-elected a president who is probably the worst public speaker of any president in the last 100 years
A small correction:
2008 will be interesting. In 2004 we re-elected a president who is probably the worst of any president in the last 100 years
There we go.
A police officer "looking at me" hardly qualifies as "investigation". In case it still isn't clear, I'm referring to any willful attempt to locate, acquire, store, retrieve, or profile information on anyone without sufficient justification.
Re-read Amendment IV. If I have not done anything, the government has no grounds for investigation, and my actions should be completely free from any scrutiny.
Exactly right - it seems to me that they're looking for technology to do their job for them. The results could be devastating- on several levels.
why can't the same technology be utilized by the defense department,
Because it's the government, and we have a Constitution.
Very interesting point.
Body weight has nothing to with all the crap inside that food - like artery-clogging cholesterol and trans-fatty acids.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that's all it's ultimately good for. Consider this (from the article):
Devices developed under Genoa II's predecessor -- which Sharkey also managed when he worked for the Defense Department -- were used during the invasion of Afghanistan and as part of "the continuing war on terrorism,"
As I recall, Bin Laden was captured only after a very long and expensive military effort. Oh wait...he wasn't captured. I think we can see just how effective these "intelligence" efforts will be at meeting their publicly-stated objectives.
What really bothers me is that the legislative branch made it very clear that American citizens did not want this project to continue, and yet they did it anyway. Those involved should be held in contempt.
I'd be a little concerned as well - I'd like to see a very well-defined, detailed policy regarding data logging, retention, and uses - certainly not the typical corporatespeak that plagues most "privacy policiies."
I hate to break this to you, but without client-side javascript, AJAX doesn't exist.
Not exactly....
Culture is manufactured every day by companies trying to create stuff that's cool and that people will buy. It's not just about music or movies...it's about the clothing people wear, the language they use, the type of identity the seek (and the motivations behind it), and their overall behavior. The US probably has one of the most fabricated "cultures" in existence, since it's all driven by consumption.
But U.S. workers have to some extent let them get away with it.
I think there is some truth to this. On This week in Tech ( http://www.thisweekintech.com/ ), the most recent Inside the Net podcast has a very interesting interview with the founder of a website by the name of 43Folders ( http://www.43folders.com/ ), where Merlin Mann discusses this very issue.
People often feel buried because they have to spend so much time tending to their "connectedness" - email, text messages, voice mail, etc - mostly because they simply don't know how to say "no". He mentions one associate who has to contend with 300 messages per day from inside the company, and suggests that allowing this to occur (as a matter of company policy) is highly counterproductive. It's an interesting podcast.
But no more unlikely than the election being fixed for any other reason, especially considering that there's been no substantiated evidence of willful fraud.
That's a matter of interpretation. I'd suggest that voting hardware capable of producing such a mess, and that is still in use, is ample evidence of willful fraud. At a bare minimum, it's gross negligence.
Who the hell cares HOW they error? The point is that they do, and I'm quite amazed that anything this incredibly unreliable was let anywhere near an actual election. It's also a bit depressing to learn that blackboxvoting.org had to sue in order to get the logs. If this doesn't scream coverup, I don't know what does.
From the article: Note that some items were not provided to us and are ommitted from the logs.
What reason could possibly exist to justify omitting information from log entries? This isn't doing anything to instill confidence.
The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, Arthur Anderson
What an unfortunate coincidence.
Machine number 5875 in Precinct 1077 showed two different "unknown errors," listing them as "unknown error 219" and "unknown error 220."
My guess..."RandomVotecaster class improperly initialized..."
One of the least desirable actions some poll workers were taking was to perform multiple calibrations on the machines during the day, every few hours.
Um, if the machine isn't capable of "set it and forget it" operation, not to mention reliable, it should be hauled the nearest dumpster, at which point a refund should be demanded.
Hundreds of records were simply missing, not provided at all, making it impossible to complete a formal audit.
The level of contempt toward this verification process is staggering. This is depressing, I think I'll stop here.
rotating, scaling and moving objects
r0t4ting or sc4ling an object? omgwtf!! that r0x!!!
I'm guessing that's exactly what they thought when putting the patent application together. It certainly would be consistent with the mentality required attempt something like this.
It will continue until a congressman or senator becomes a victim. Until then, it's "everyone else's" problem.
Interesting point, but consider this. I'm current running Fedora Core 4. The other day I thought about burning a CD to retain some backup data. Once again, I was confronted with the nastiness that requires me dork with kernal parameters, setting it to emulate SCSI. I've been through all this a couple times before, but I still haven't managed to burn the CD, because I just don't feel like messing with this stuff again.
We're LONG past this. A CD is so ubiquitous these days that there is no reason that it shouldn't be one of those things that "just work", or making it work should require a bare minimum effort.
What if, say, it's 75% cheaper? Would price savings compensate for the additonal restrictions?
Not for me. This reduction is only temporary, until they gain control of the market- at that point, they'll charge whatever they want.
I expect the same exact rights as if I'd purchased a printed version. Based on the overall direction we've seen recently with various DRM-related efforts, that probably isn't going to happen.
They should be supported by taxes.
God I hope you're kidding.
I applaud your effort, but I must say that the aesthetics of the site aren't too appealing.
The technology might be cool, but what will keep me away is how much the so-called "content owners" are willing to be complete assholes about how the material is used, transferred, retained, etc. The technology may very well be ready, but I'm not so sure the content industry is - or ever will be.