You cannot ensure these with voting machines without the use of paper*. It is not a matter of code, just a fact of information and physics.
I would think that the crypto experts out there could come up with a system which securely stores everyone's votes in a database keyed such that a person could go login securely to a web site to cast their votes, and can look at their current and prior votes for verification, and then the election officials could get and tabulate the votes without being able to trace back who the vote originally came from. Then you would have a system where fraud would be much more difficult and would be both private, accountable, and reproduceable without needing any paper (other than perhaps a person printing it for his own files).
Only drawback I see would be the Palin/Yahoo scenario...
I really like the idea of a touchscreen but so far I haven't found one I liked. All the ones I have actually tried had 12" screens, which is a bit too small to be much of anything but a oversized Palm/Blackberry replacement, and the screens look "fuzzy", like looking through a sheet of wax paper (not THAT bad, but something like that). 13.3" or even a 15" touchscreen with improved clarity and I'm there.
Maybe Jobs knows that it's just not ready for mass market.
That model works for Quicken... release [i]something[/i] every year no matter how minor the changes and expire the prior versions after they age 4 or 5 years. They could do the same thing with each service pack being a new year for Windows.
...that keeps pushing up the cost of a college education.
Not necessarily. Standardization of hardware can reduce IT costs... tech support, system qne network administration can all be reduced when everyone is using the same couple devices. The potential cost savings could easily offset the cost of these devices. Of course it doesn't mean it is guaranteed to do so however.
When they do, the entire world will get to discover that, contrary to the perception created by occasionally brilliant shows like The Office, 99% of BBC programming is complete shit.
I enjoy(ed) Coupling, Red Dwarf, Dr. Who, and Torchwood (Eve FTW) so the percentage is more like 95%, which makes it somewhat better than American TV.
For me it started when I wanted to create a directory in Program Files and had to answer four UAC prompts to do so.. two to create New Folder, and two more to rename it to what I wanted
But the biggest problem with UAC was that applications had not caught up and it was easier to turn off UAC than to try to track down exactly what was wrong with a diverse set of applications. I had some programs that would work only from an elevated user account, some which would work from an elevated admin account, and some that just wouldn't work at all.
I seriously considered upgrading to XP, but once I found out how to turn off UAC all of a sudden everything just worked, and I've been happy with Vista ever since.
And lawyers should know enough about the law to realize that they are embarking on a frivolous lawsuit, whose purpose is just to intimidate or send a political message.
The intent is honorable but sometimes what is and is not frivolous is a gray area. One would think suing them over use of this clip was frivolous, but what if the clip was 30 or 45 seconds long instead of 15... at some point it's not fair use anymore correct? Where is that line?
Also if this was the case one could also argue that anyone trying to contest an existing law would be pursuing something frivolous and all of a sudden you couldn't get anyone to contest provisions of the DMCA or Patriot Act.
Where does the info that fabbing for AMD will be less profitable than fabbing for other chip designers? It's kind of implied. Otherwise why would AMD have any reason to use it's own fab spinoff as opposed to contracting it out to the lowest bidder?
No it's always great to have facts over random speculation:-)</p><p>My original comment was from the assumption that it was thin glass tubes like CFL or perhaps window glass. How thick is the glass? Is there some coating over it to protect it?</p>
This works well until the economy turns around and the fab becomes oversubscribed. Does the fab fill the (probably less profitable) AMD orders, or the (probably more profitable) outside orders first? At least with them maintaining an ownership interest they should be able to guarantee some capacity as well as have a reasonable shot at maintaining quality but there are bound to be issues.
I would hate to see the fallout of PS3's key being compromised. Or do they use a number of different keys so that they wouldn't end up disabling every PS3 on the planet?
I'm curious, as a end user of WoW, how am I to know that CT Raid Assist is "legal" and MMOGlider is not? Or any of the other dozens of mods available out there for that matter.
Is this whole case simply about removing the need for me to figure that out?
You're twisting the meaning of DRM to make a business model you don't like look bad. There are valid reasons for disliking Blizzard, or WoW, or even any pay per month MMO, but DRM isn't one of them in this case.
If you want to get into technicalities, DRM is Digital Rights Management. I don't think the EULA qualifies as a digital restriction.
I never said that I disliked this model... I have two accounts which I use extensively. I simply am saying that the subscription service is to protect their digital rights just like any other copy protection method would.
I would also note that in addition to requiring a subscription the disks include a key which is required as well... you cannot just give those disks to anyone, the key will not work again, nor will they have a subscription.
It is no different than having a subscription music service which disables your music when you cancel your subscription. Blizzard is trying to protect it's digital rights every bit as much as the music and movie industries.
I'll grant that the subscription model is a relatively low intrusion DRM compared to having key disks or installing malware on your system but that doesn't make it any less of a DRM method.
You're not paying a licensing fee, you're paying a subscription fee. The former lets you use your software while the latter lets you use Blizzard's servers. Big difference. WoW keeps working just fine if your subscription expires, you're able to log on to private servers without any issues (admittedly, Blizzard would love to stop that too, but they haven't been able to sue the private server projects out of existence). The only thing you lose is access to the official Blizzard servers.
But in that case you would be violating Blizzard's licensing terms.
Limitations on Your Use of the Service.
Only Blizzard or its licensees have the right to host the Game. You may not host or provide matchmaking services for the Game, or intercept, emulate or redirect the proprietary communication protocols used by Blizzard in connection with the Program, regardless of the method used to do so. Such prohibited methods may include, but are not limited to, protocol emulation, reverse engineering, modifying the Program, adding unauthorized components to the Program, or using a packet sniffer while the Program is running.
So yes, you can say it is paying for service, but the reality is that if you stop paying you are technically no longer are able to use the software, and that is DRM.
As for his question, World of Warcraft is DRM free, and the upcoming WOTLK is also supposed to be free of it too!
I guess that count as a particularly major title:)
Not sure how you can say that World of Warcraft is DRM free. You are required to pay a periodic licensing fee and authenticate every time you try to use the software. If you have not paid your licensing fee the software will not operate. That is a form of DRM.
So say you have Comcast's triple-play or some VOIP service that rides out of your house on your Comcast connection. You get cut off for one reason or another, such as exceeding this cap. Is your phone service dead, too? Better have a mobile phone if 911 needs to be called?
If they cut off 911 they had better be prepared for some nice lawsuits.
Honestly, they can't call it unlimited anymore. Unlimited has a set definition. It's not open to interpretation. If you introduce caps, or limits, well, you're giving a different service.
I'm surprised they are effectively going back on this rather than throttling your speeds to keep you under a arbitrary cap. They do advertise "up to X Mb/s" so they wouldn't even need an additional disclaimer. It would seem to me that since they have that speedboost thing it should be able to work in reverse to prevent someone from exceeding the "cap".
I guess what I'm asking is: is this whole problem arising from the retailers' desire not to be burdened with the logistics of collecting tax, and the consumers' desire to evade the tax? Or is there something else I'm missing here?
It's a bit of both, but retailers especially. The problem is that it's not only the 50 states sales tax, many counties and cities also have their cut, so having to collect sales tax for states other than where you are located is a complete nightmare.
Moreover, they can't impose taxes on New York citizens importing goods from other states, because the Constitution and its commerce clause forbid that.
Not sure how you come to this conclusion. A state can tax their citizens based by any arbitrary method they choose including how much you import from other states.
Enforceability is another matter entirely. Other than titled items most states have no reliable method of determining how much is imported, so most use taxes are completely unenforceable.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a link to my lightbulb on the internet: http://mcternan.co.uk/MAD/
It's an ambient device, and while only IPv4, but it does run on a lovely ATmega168 and support DHCP, AutoIP, NMNS and has a HTTP tiny client.
That's no fun, I wanted to see the click boxes on the web page so I could turn your light on and off.
what, you mean slashdot this: http://www.c64web.com/ ? Cheers and My apologies to the website owner
And it seems to work just fine. Move over Akamai.
You cannot ensure these with voting machines without the use of paper*. It is not a matter of code, just a fact of information and physics.
I would think that the crypto experts out there could come up with a system which securely stores everyone's votes in a database keyed such that a person could go login securely to a web site to cast their votes, and can look at their current and prior votes for verification, and then the election officials could get and tabulate the votes without being able to trace back who the vote originally came from. Then you would have a system where fraud would be much more difficult and would be both private, accountable, and reproduceable without needing any paper (other than perhaps a person printing it for his own files).
Only drawback I see would be the Palin/Yahoo scenario...
I really like the idea of a touchscreen but so far I haven't found one I liked. All the ones I have actually tried had 12" screens, which is a bit too small to be much of anything but a oversized Palm/Blackberry replacement, and the screens look "fuzzy", like looking through a sheet of wax paper (not THAT bad, but something like that). 13.3" or even a 15" touchscreen with improved clarity and I'm there.
Maybe Jobs knows that it's just not ready for mass market.
That model works for Quicken... release [i]something[/i] every year no matter how minor the changes and expire the prior versions after they age 4 or 5 years. They could do the same thing with each service pack being a new year for Windows.
Here is most of that list in pretty graph form: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Windows_Family_Tree.png
...that keeps pushing up the cost of a college education.
Not necessarily. Standardization of hardware can reduce IT costs... tech support, system qne network administration can all be reduced when everyone is using the same couple devices. The potential cost savings could easily offset the cost of these devices. Of course it doesn't mean it is guaranteed to do so however.
When they do, the entire world will get to discover that, contrary to the perception created by occasionally brilliant shows like The Office, 99% of BBC programming is complete shit.
I enjoy(ed) Coupling, Red Dwarf, Dr. Who, and Torchwood (Eve FTW) so the percentage is more like 95%, which makes it somewhat better than American TV.
For me it started when I wanted to create a directory in Program Files and had to answer four UAC prompts to do so.. two to create New Folder, and two more to rename it to what I wanted
But the biggest problem with UAC was that applications had not caught up and it was easier to turn off UAC than to try to track down exactly what was wrong with a diverse set of applications. I had some programs that would work only from an elevated user account, some which would work from an elevated admin account, and some that just wouldn't work at all.
I seriously considered upgrading to XP, but once I found out how to turn off UAC all of a sudden everything just worked, and I've been happy with Vista ever since.
And lawyers should know enough about the law to realize that they are embarking on a frivolous lawsuit, whose purpose is just to intimidate or send a political message.
The intent is honorable but sometimes what is and is not frivolous is a gray area. One would think suing them over use of this clip was frivolous, but what if the clip was 30 or 45 seconds long instead of 15... at some point it's not fair use anymore correct? Where is that line?
Also if this was the case one could also argue that anyone trying to contest an existing law would be pursuing something frivolous and all of a sudden you couldn't get anyone to contest provisions of the DMCA or Patriot Act.
Where does the info that fabbing for AMD will be less profitable than fabbing for other chip designers?
It's kind of implied. Otherwise why would AMD have any reason to use it's own fab spinoff as opposed to contracting it out to the lowest bidder?
No it's always great to have facts over random speculation :-)</p><p>My original comment was from the assumption that it was thin glass tubes like CFL or perhaps window glass. How thick is the glass? Is there some coating over it to protect it?</p>
If those tubes are as thick as my cars windshield that would be fine... but I'm guessing they are not.
As far as my home's windows they would certainly be a lot more vulnerable to hail if they were also mounted horizontally.
So a good hailstorm will demolish your solar array?
This works well until the economy turns around and the fab becomes oversubscribed. Does the fab fill the (probably less profitable) AMD orders, or the (probably more profitable) outside orders first? At least with them maintaining an ownership interest they should be able to guarantee some capacity as well as have a reasonable shot at maintaining quality but there are bound to be issues.
I would hate to see the fallout of PS3's key being compromised. Or do they use a number of different keys so that they wouldn't end up disabling every PS3 on the planet?
I'm curious, as a end user of WoW, how am I to know that CT Raid Assist is "legal" and MMOGlider is not? Or any of the other dozens of mods available out there for that matter. Is this whole case simply about removing the need for me to figure that out?
You're twisting the meaning of DRM to make a business model you don't like look bad. There are valid reasons for disliking Blizzard, or WoW, or even any pay per month MMO, but DRM isn't one of them in this case. If you want to get into technicalities, DRM is Digital Rights Management. I don't think the EULA qualifies as a digital restriction.
I never said that I disliked this model... I have two accounts which I use extensively. I simply am saying that the subscription service is to protect their digital rights just like any other copy protection method would.
I would also note that in addition to requiring a subscription the disks include a key which is required as well... you cannot just give those disks to anyone, the key will not work again, nor will they have a subscription.
It is no different than having a subscription music service which disables your music when you cancel your subscription. Blizzard is trying to protect it's digital rights every bit as much as the music and movie industries.
I'll grant that the subscription model is a relatively low intrusion DRM compared to having key disks or installing malware on your system but that doesn't make it any less of a DRM method.
You're not paying a licensing fee, you're paying a subscription fee. The former lets you use your software while the latter lets you use Blizzard's servers. Big difference. WoW keeps working just fine if your subscription expires, you're able to log on to private servers without any issues (admittedly, Blizzard would love to stop that too, but they haven't been able to sue the private server projects out of existence). The only thing you lose is access to the official Blizzard servers.
But in that case you would be violating Blizzard's licensing terms.
Limitations on Your Use of the Service. Only Blizzard or its licensees have the right to host the Game. You may not host or provide matchmaking services for the Game, or intercept, emulate or redirect the proprietary communication protocols used by Blizzard in connection with the Program, regardless of the method used to do so. Such prohibited methods may include, but are not limited to, protocol emulation, reverse engineering, modifying the Program, adding unauthorized components to the Program, or using a packet sniffer while the Program is running.
So yes, you can say it is paying for service, but the reality is that if you stop paying you are technically no longer are able to use the software, and that is DRM.
As for his question, World of Warcraft is DRM free, and the upcoming WOTLK is also supposed to be free of it too!
I guess that count as a particularly major title :)
Not sure how you can say that World of Warcraft is DRM free. You are required to pay a periodic licensing fee and authenticate every time you try to use the software. If you have not paid your licensing fee the software will not operate. That is a form of DRM.
If you encrypt your email you don't really need to worry where you traffic goes.
Except that encrypted email is probably one of those red flags they watch for. I'd rather be a nobody in a sea of nobodys than a "person of interest".
So say you have Comcast's triple-play or some VOIP service that rides out of your house on your Comcast connection. You get cut off for one reason or another, such as exceeding this cap. Is your phone service dead, too? Better have a mobile phone if 911 needs to be called?
If they cut off 911 they had better be prepared for some nice lawsuits.
Honestly, they can't call it unlimited anymore. Unlimited has a set definition. It's not open to interpretation. If you introduce caps, or limits, well, you're giving a different service.
I'm surprised they are effectively going back on this rather than throttling your speeds to keep you under a arbitrary cap. They do advertise "up to X Mb/s" so they wouldn't even need an additional disclaimer. It would seem to me that since they have that speedboost thing it should be able to work in reverse to prevent someone from exceeding the "cap".
I guess what I'm asking is: is this whole problem arising from the retailers' desire not to be burdened with the logistics of collecting tax, and the consumers' desire to evade the tax? Or is there something else I'm missing here?
It's a bit of both, but retailers especially. The problem is that it's not only the 50 states sales tax, many counties and cities also have their cut, so having to collect sales tax for states other than where you are located is a complete nightmare.
Moreover, they can't impose taxes on New York citizens importing goods from other states, because the Constitution and its commerce clause forbid that.
Not sure how you come to this conclusion. A state can tax their citizens based by any arbitrary method they choose including how much you import from other states. Enforceability is another matter entirely. Other than titled items most states have no reliable method of determining how much is imported, so most use taxes are completely unenforceable.