Most people commenting here concentrate on security of such a system. That is not the major issue..
The real danger of such system is that masses of idiots owning cellphones who otherwise would not bother to visit voting booth would be allowed to vote on impulse, coerced by some clever ad, other person or whatever makes them move, without giving the matter any real thought. Results would be expectable and disastrous.
The need to drive to balloting point or at least to get the national ID card and install some software for e-voting ensures that most voters care about country enough to do these things. Also it gives them time to reflect on their reasoning en route, perhaps arriving on a more rational decision in time.
Availability of easy anytime-anywhere voting for general public will make any manipulative politician wet his pants in orgastic delight. Possibilities of direct and indirect mass influencing would be endless.
We very nearly ended up with a medical basket case as President last time. Give idiots a way to vote and it will be a landslide next time. Wonders of modern medicine will probably keep him alive long enough.
To efficiently cool the 5000 processors this is probably a fully submerged design - no computer cases, just racks full of motherboards, simple heat exchangers on cpu's. Pump the container full of mineral oil and there you go cooling:)
To get the heat away from container, the obvious way is submerge that too, just attach fiber and power cables and drop it in some river!
Found his page about the language too. Its from 2001 though so it may have changed a lot. The language described there seems to be heavily based on Finnish indeed.
These all seem to be Estonian words (my mother tongue) with small misspellings that may have been created by trying to apply finnish grammar to estonian root nouns.
The words mentioned, in English, Estonian and Finnish:
Pine, Mänd, Mänty Day, Päev, Päivä Sun, Päike, Aurinko Mother, Ema, Äiti Life, Elu, Eläma Oak, Tamm, Tammi
I believe I have the finnish words correct but hope to be corrected if there is misspellings in there.
As to what this guy is doing, only a true masochist would be learning Estonian of his own free will. It has a very complex grammar with very obscure rules, Im not sure how we manage to learn it ourselves:P
As a warning example: estonian nouns can have 14 different forms(cases) represented by suffixes added to word root. To make the matters nore difficult, those suffixes vary for same case, for different words.
Quick google turned out this page with following example:
1: Nominative (nimetav): kirik 'a church' 2: Genitive (omastav): kiriku 'of a church' 3: Partitive (osastav): kiriku-t 'a church' 4: Illative (sisseütlev): kiriku-sse 'into a church' 5: Inessive (seesütlev): kiriku-s 'in a church' 6: Elative (seestütlev): kiriku-st 'out of a church' 7: Allative (alaleütlev): kiriku-le '(on)to a church' 8: Adessive (alalütlev): kiriku-l 'on a church' 9: Ablative (alaltütlev): kiriku-lt 'from a church' 10: Translative (saav): kiriku-ks '(change) into a church' 11: Essive (olev): kiriku-na 'as a church' 12: Terminative (rajav): kiriku-ni 'up to a church' 13: Abessive (ilmaütlev): kiriku-ta 'without a church' 14: Comitative (kaasaütlev): kiriku-ga 'with a church'
But if this guy actually manages to come out with a simplified, reasonable grammar for Estonian, I would think it a Good Thing and be very interested.
Huge number of vehicles all over the world use GPS for navigating. Shutting it off will quite probably cause steady stream of direct and indirect deaths. Nice.
Seeing the diff reminded me of cool picture i saw on photo site: http://hagar.nomad.ee/pildid/images/3362.jpg Cloud of mosquitos caught in flash. Looks like a flying crosses scene from Pink Floyds "The Wall" movie:)
It's fairly obvious that whoever put up the money wants the film to have the widest possible appeal in america, and that means they don't want to risk offending middle america with the kind of religous imagery used in the games.
Same thing happened to the original Castle Wolfenstain I have read.. the ads for it in Germany started: "From the outer space....."
I have been looking for a nice case to build a MythTV box in for some time now, and those few which are available and look good cost a lot - $100-200 at least. Too damn much.
Then the other day in cheap electronics shop I noticed number of new DVD players $30-$40 range(Xoro, Yakumo, shit like that). Nice cases. Should be possible to throw out the the original innards and build a pc into them. There would be few problems though, power supply and height - they are about 1U height. Perhaps somebody has already tried that and can share experience? Maybe some specific model is more suitable for conversion then others? (reuse PSU, drive, display panel?)
Some sort of anthrax aerosol or something that explodes in mid-air over a small area. Maybe in a neighborhood or park. I don't know -- I'm just speculating here. Makes you wonder if it could be done.
My god, you have to outlaw balloons - quick! 5 cent biological warfare delivery systems in hands of the kids!
I've long wondered where there are no music-vending machines like this? You have this small vending machine with touchscreen where you can select albums/songs, drop in your $5 (or less if less/cheaper music chosen) and walk away with a nice, fresh-burned cd in 3 minutes. Takes very little room, no possibility of music theft, no need for security gates.
Cost of hardware very small, built from off the shelf components, software simple, built on free opensource components. Songs would be downloaded over broadband from central location at demand, most popular titles could be cached locally. All the new music would be available on all machines instantly.
There are endless places where machines like this could be used, places where you have some time to kill anyway. Think bus and railway stations (get something new to listen on the road), supermarket queues (machine a bit away from checkout, let your cd burn while you stand in row and get fresh cd from the salesperson in end), gas stations (you get handled a wireless tablet to choose tracks by the refill guy, free cd if you buy a full tank!) etc etc. Cost of distribution virtually zero, meaning high returns for artists, very convenient to customers, they get exactly what they want where they want it.
Heck, someone offer me a contract and Ill take care of both software and hardware. Distributors, any takers?:)
Reminds me of anecdote.. two bicycle designers discussing:
"Hmm.. if we put a circular shape on flat surface we should get smooth rolling action, right?" - "Yes.." - "Well, we put square wheels on our bicycle and the earth is a round.. so why the hell does it not work???"
In 1994 I bought a box of 720K single-density floppies by TDK. After discovering that making this extra hole could double the disk capacity, I crudely bashed the holes in them with the end of scissors.
These floppies were used almost daily for 3 years. (no hard disks available at that time). They were reformatted countless times.
Not single one of them ever failed. About a year ago, when failed to reformat and make a boot disk from several fresh-brought floppies I digged up one of them, reformatted again and succeeded in making a reliable boot disk.
I think the next step in fight with terrorism is obvious. Naturally it is to force everyone in country to have a satellite-controllable equivalent of pacemaker. This would make US the safest country in the world - once the terrorist is identified he can just be "shut down" with no danger to anyone!
Of course then whole country could be shut down by some unheard-of, strong electromagnetic disturbance, like X30 scale solar flare, but what are the chances of that happenigh, eh? Nothing to worry about.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people commenting here concentrate on security of such a system. That is not the major issue..
The real danger of such system is that masses of idiots owning cellphones who otherwise would not bother to visit voting booth would be allowed to vote on impulse, coerced by some clever ad, other person or whatever makes them move, without giving the matter any real thought. Results would be expectable and disastrous.
The need to drive to balloting point or at least to get the national ID card and install some software for e-voting ensures that most voters care about country enough to do these things. Also it gives them time to reflect on their reasoning en route, perhaps arriving on a more rational decision in time.
Availability of easy anytime-anywhere voting for general public will make any manipulative politician wet his pants in orgastic delight. Possibilities of direct and indirect mass influencing would be endless.
We very nearly ended up with a medical basket case as President last time. Give idiots a way to vote and it will be a landslide next time. Wonders of modern medicine will probably keep him alive long enough.
zurgutt, estonia
To efficiently cool the 5000 processors this is probably a fully submerged design - no computer cases, just racks full of motherboards, simple heat exchangers on cpu's. Pump the container full of mineral oil and there you go cooling :)
To get the heat away from container, the obvious way is submerge that too, just attach fiber and power cables and drop it in some river!
Found his page about the language too. Its from 2001 though so it may have changed a lot. The language described there seems to be heavily based on Finnish indeed.
These all seem to be Estonian words (my mother tongue) with small misspellings that may have been created by trying to apply finnish grammar to estonian root nouns.
:P
The words mentioned, in English, Estonian and Finnish:
Pine, Mänd, Mänty
Day, Päev, Päivä
Sun, Päike, Aurinko
Mother, Ema, Äiti
Life, Elu, Eläma
Oak, Tamm, Tammi
I believe I have the finnish words correct but hope to be corrected if there is misspellings in there.
As to what this guy is doing, only a true masochist would be learning Estonian of his own free will. It has a very complex grammar with very obscure rules, Im not sure how we manage to learn it ourselves
As a warning example: estonian nouns can have 14 different forms(cases) represented by suffixes added to word root. To make the matters nore difficult, those suffixes vary for same case, for different words.
Quick google turned out this page with following example:
1: Nominative (nimetav): kirik 'a church'
2: Genitive (omastav): kiriku 'of a church'
3: Partitive (osastav): kiriku-t 'a church'
4: Illative (sisseütlev): kiriku-sse 'into a church'
5: Inessive (seesütlev): kiriku-s 'in a church'
6: Elative (seestütlev): kiriku-st 'out of a church'
7: Allative (alaleütlev): kiriku-le '(on)to a church'
8: Adessive (alalütlev): kiriku-l 'on a church'
9: Ablative (alaltütlev): kiriku-lt 'from a church'
10: Translative (saav): kiriku-ks '(change) into a church'
11: Essive (olev): kiriku-na 'as a church'
12: Terminative (rajav): kiriku-ni 'up to a church'
13: Abessive (ilmaütlev): kiriku-ta 'without a church'
14: Comitative (kaasaütlev): kiriku-ga 'with a church'
But if this guy actually manages to come out with a simplified, reasonable grammar for Estonian, I would think it a Good Thing and be very interested.
Huge number of vehicles all over the world use GPS for navigating. Shutting it off will quite probably cause steady stream of direct and indirect deaths. Nice.
Seeing the diff reminded me of cool picture i saw on photo site: http://hagar.nomad.ee/pildid/images/3362.jpg :)
Cloud of mosquitos caught in flash. Looks like a flying crosses scene from Pink Floyds "The Wall" movie
The actual site is http://foto.kala.ee/
.. or the next thing that will happen is they get bored..
It's fairly obvious that whoever put up the money wants the film to have the widest possible appeal in america, and that means they don't want to risk offending middle america with the kind of religous imagery used in the games.
.."
Same thing happened to the original Castle Wolfenstain I have read.. the ads for it in Germany started: "From the outer space...
"Never be rude to an arab.."
I recommend loading with cd-coasters.
Sharpen the edge for maximum amusement of the unexpecting.
I have been looking for a nice case to build a MythTV box in for some time now, and those few which are available and look good cost a lot - $100-200 at least. Too damn much.
Then the other day in cheap electronics shop I noticed number of new DVD players $30-$40 range(Xoro, Yakumo, shit like that). Nice cases. Should be possible to throw out the the original innards and build a pc into them. There would be few problems though, power supply and height - they are about 1U height. Perhaps somebody has already tried that and can share experience? Maybe some specific model is more suitable for conversion then others? (reuse PSU, drive, display panel?)
and be done with the problem once and forever?
;)
No, seriously
Or at least create one that warns victims about the hole..
Well actually it might be good too, this will probably further hasten the fall of IE and windows.
..and the power cord was plugged in too. A chance for real geeky death :)
Some sort of anthrax aerosol or something that explodes in mid-air over a small area. Maybe in a neighborhood or park. I don't know -- I'm just speculating here. Makes you wonder if it could be done.
My god, you have to outlaw balloons - quick! 5 cent biological warfare delivery systems in hands of the kids!
..that the article is missing the illustration with a 21-thumbed Microsoft developer on it. My imagination is running wild..
Might also explain the quality of their products - ever tried to do code using thumbs only?
And then of curse there is speculations about exact location and function of the 21st thumb...
Well, the proper reverse-assed thing to do then would be to climb into bathtub with clothes on. Razor blade optional.
I've long wondered where there are no music-vending machines like this? You have this small vending machine with touchscreen where you can select albums/songs, drop in your $5 (or less if less/cheaper music chosen) and walk away with a nice, fresh-burned cd in 3 minutes. Takes very little room, no possibility of music theft, no need for security gates.
:)
Cost of hardware very small, built from off the shelf components, software simple, built on free opensource components. Songs would be downloaded over broadband from central location at demand, most popular titles could be cached locally. All the new music would be available on all machines instantly.
There are endless places where machines like this could be used, places where you have some time to kill anyway. Think bus and railway stations (get something new to listen on the road), supermarket queues (machine a bit away from checkout, let your cd burn while you stand in row and get fresh cd from the salesperson in end), gas stations (you get handled a wireless tablet to choose tracks by the refill guy, free cd if you buy a full tank!) etc etc. Cost of distribution virtually zero, meaning high returns for artists, very convenient to customers, they get exactly what they want where they want it.
Heck, someone offer me a contract and Ill take care of both software and hardware. Distributors, any takers?
Reminds me of anecdote.. two bicycle designers discussing:
"Hmm.. if we put a circular shape on flat surface we should get smooth rolling action, right?" - "Yes.." - "Well, we put square wheels on our bicycle and the earth is a round.. so why the hell does it not work???"
In 1994 I bought a box of 720K single-density floppies by TDK. After discovering that making this extra hole could double the disk capacity, I crudely bashed the holes in them with the end of scissors.
These floppies were used almost daily for 3 years. (no hard disks available at that time). They were reformatted countless times.
Not single one of them ever failed. About a year ago, when failed to reformat and make a boot disk from several fresh-brought floppies I digged up one of them, reformatted again and succeeded in making a reliable boot disk.
Quality of todays media just makes me cry.
HydroWax :)
Of course then whole country could be shut down by some unheard-of, strong electromagnetic disturbance, like X30 scale solar flare, but what are the chances of that happenigh, eh? Nothing to worry about.
Lets call this new distro "Distribution formerly known as RedHat", and everybody should be happy again..
It could be EXCELLENT weapon agains the US, though :)
Maybe we should get a craft with solar sail up and waiting asap, for next event? :)
Its true! Extensive stydy among kindergarden children has shown that there is strong correlation between shoe size and intelligence!
..much, much more secure ;)