The reason I don't see it as a tremendous stretch is that the very process of the anonymous vote prevents people's opinions being swayed by previous voting. The very fact that you don't know how other people are voting forces you to consider your vote more carefully. In my opinion, this leads people to vote with their conscience, which is the very foundation of democracy.
Condiser for a minute that in Canada, having your Member of Parliament as a member of a majority government, or better yet, a Minister can have huge advantages for your riding. So, if you live in BC, and it is clear that the Liberal Party will form a majority government, many people could be swayed to vote for the Liberals. Is this fair to the people of BC? Perhaps an argument could be made that it is. Is this fair to people in Newfoundland? Clearly not. They voted without prior knowledge of who would form the government, and so are more likely be caught out of the loop. In a sense, the anonymity of the vote is comprimised. Sure, it is an aggregate statistic, and no individual person's privacy is violated. However, as a province, their votes are laid bare for the rest of Canada, and perhaps stripping them of the chance to fairly partake in the voting process. Similarly, people in BC would have a significant advantage in knowing, through intermediate results in other time zones, that a particular party was destined for power.
I have to disagree with some of your points. What is the legitimate relevance to the public of intermediate election results, aside from trying to boost ratings for the election media coverage? I am not disagreeing with your comment, simply its applicability in this context. You give no reasons at all why this constitutes legitimate relevance to the public. I am interested in being enlightened in this regard. Obviously, the final result is of extreme importance to the public, but the intermediate results? You also imply that I am claiming that the "public can't be trusted to respond 'correctly'", but I am not suggesting anything of the kind. The only 'correct' vote is the vote for your conscience, and the only 'wasted' vote is one against it.
As usual in situations where the desire to censor information exists, the underlying flaw in the logic is the assumption that the information
should be restricted in the first place.
Great idea. Why not have the vote simply a public raise your hand for so-and-so extravaganza? Now that would be a fair election! NOT!!!
There is a reason that polling is private and anonymous, and it isn't a large stretch to extend this from individual votes to intermediate results. It ensures that the vote is fair for all voters, all candidates and all parties.
Personally, I disagree with you on this one. I too am a Canadian, but I don't see this as a breach of the Charter. The big problem as I see it is that Elections Canada seems to think it is necessary to put out the results in the East first, but there is a media blackout enforced at the same time. To me that seems damn close to entrapment, since someone will publish the results if they are available. My feeling on the matter is that Elections Canada should withold results for, say, 24 hours after the last polling station closes. Then everyone finds out at the same time, and you don't have to worry about people breaking the law or trying to subvert the process.
Don't forget that the person in the story was warned several times to cease and desist on election night, but chose to ignore the warnings. I think that he will have a very tough battle ahead of him.
I also don't see it as being unenforcable. After all, he appears to be having it enforced upon him.
... like having spammers use your domain name when forging headers. This happened to an net acquaintance of mine. His domain is registered in Colorado, yet he basically lost his suit. To me, this is worse than just getting spammed. Check out the details if you are interested: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~seidl/lawsuit Basically, it comes down to this: People hate you. People flame you. Potential employers hate you. You get nothing but royally screwed.
Hmmm. Having known many a bartender in the past, I can assure you that they have no N2 bottle in the back pressurizing the kegs. The bubbles are made very small mostly due to the long rubbery thing that is at the very end of the tap. Inside that little tube is a set of screens, similar to aerators on kitchen taps. These screens make the bubbles smaller than North American beers, which don't have the special tap. So, if you have a relatively viscous beer (such as most stouts), you can give your homebrew the cascade (as most folks call it) by pouring the brew through a set of screens. Of course, you need to have a certain amount of pressure at the screens, so a funnel with a hose connected should be used to gravity feed the spout holding the screens. Incidentally, this setup can be used to add beautiful art to the head of the pint. Now that is a rare skill these days that this beer drinker truly appreciates!
So, I would recommend using 3 to 5 0.05mm screens about 3mm apart, i.e. not touching so that the beer will flow properly. Then most of the bubbles will be of the correct size to cascade. Some will agglomerate, initiating the effect. I haven't tried it, so some experimentation with the number spacing and size of the screens as well as the amount of gravity potential will be necessary. I'm going to try it, and if I succeed, then I will try to get my results posted for all to use!
About the widget - I suspect that that thing simply creates really small bubbles. I intend to check this hypothesis over the next week or so as well.
About the study - I don't think that it really provided new insights, as I have known about the screens well before this study even began. I was told by someone who had known it for years. I suspect that the folks at Guiness have known it for decades. Still, to see it scientifically demonstrated in such a way will silence many a self-proclaimed beer scholar! The most important discovery in my opinion is the size of the bubble requuired for the cascade.
One final observation - the argument that N2 sinks while CO2 rises makes no sense. CO2 is heavier (1.977 g/l) than N2 (1.2506 g/l), so if either sinks, it would be the CO2 before the N2. Of course, being a gas, they both are significantly more bouyant than the Guiness... I have heard this argument vehemently debated over many a pint of the world's finest stout.
... the polyphase electric motor. Singlehandedly invented by Nikola Tesla, who also invented the flourescent lightbulb, the wireless telegraph. Without Tesla's invention, we wouldn't have electricity as we know it. So much else fell into place afterwards, its now almost impossible to imagine a world without it! Tony Christney
Slashdot Mirror
The reason I don't see it as a tremendous stretch is that the very process of the anonymous vote prevents people's opinions being swayed by previous voting. The very fact that you don't know how other people are voting forces you to consider your vote more carefully. In my opinion, this leads people to vote with their conscience, which is the very foundation of democracy.
Condiser for a minute that in Canada, having your Member of Parliament as a member of a majority government, or better yet, a Minister can have huge advantages for your riding. So, if you live in BC, and it is clear that the Liberal Party will form a majority government, many people could be swayed to vote for the Liberals. Is this fair to the people of BC? Perhaps an argument could be made that it is. Is this fair to people in Newfoundland? Clearly not. They voted without prior knowledge of who would form the government, and so are more likely be caught out of the loop. In a sense, the anonymity of the vote is comprimised. Sure, it is an aggregate statistic, and no individual person's privacy is violated. However, as a province, their votes are laid bare for the rest of Canada, and perhaps stripping them of the chance to fairly partake in the voting process. Similarly, people in BC would have a significant advantage in knowing, through intermediate results in other time zones, that a particular party was destined for power.
I have to disagree with some of your points. What is the legitimate relevance to the public of intermediate election results, aside from trying to boost ratings for the election media coverage? I am not disagreeing with your comment, simply its applicability in this context. You give no reasons at all why this constitutes legitimate relevance to the public. I am interested in being enlightened in this regard. Obviously, the final result is of extreme importance to the public, but the intermediate results? You also imply that I am claiming that the "public can't be trusted to respond 'correctly'", but I am not suggesting anything of the kind. The only 'correct' vote is the vote for your conscience, and the only 'wasted' vote is one against it.
As usual in situations where the desire to censor information exists, the underlying flaw in the logic is the assumption that the information should be restricted in the first place.
Great idea. Why not have the vote simply a public raise your hand for so-and-so extravaganza? Now that would be a fair election! NOT!!!
There is a reason that polling is private and anonymous, and it isn't a large stretch to extend this from individual votes to intermediate results. It ensures that the vote is fair for all voters, all candidates and all parties.
Personally, I disagree with you on this one. I too am a Canadian, but I don't see this as a breach of the Charter. The big problem as I see it is that Elections Canada seems to think it is necessary to put out the results in the East first, but there is a media blackout enforced at the same time. To me that seems damn close to entrapment, since someone will publish the results if they are available. My feeling on the matter is that Elections Canada should withold results for, say, 24 hours after the last polling station closes. Then everyone finds out at the same time, and you don't have to worry about people breaking the law or trying to subvert the process.
Don't forget that the person in the story was warned several times to cease and desist on election night, but chose to ignore the warnings. I think that he will have a very tough battle ahead of him.
I also don't see it as being unenforcable. After all, he appears to be having it enforced upon him.
... like having spammers use your domain name when forging headers. This happened to an net acquaintance of mine. His domain is registered in Colorado, yet he basically lost his suit. To me, this is worse than just getting spammed. Check out the details if you are interested: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~seidl/lawsuit Basically, it comes down to this: People hate you. People flame you. Potential employers hate you. You get nothing but royally screwed.
Hmmm. Having known many a bartender in the past, I can assure you that they have no N2 bottle in the back pressurizing the kegs. The bubbles are made very small mostly due to the long rubbery thing that is at the very end of the tap. Inside that little tube is a set of screens, similar to aerators on kitchen taps. These screens make the bubbles smaller than North American beers, which don't have the special tap. So, if you have a relatively viscous beer (such as most stouts), you can give your homebrew the cascade (as most folks call it) by pouring the brew through a set of screens. Of course, you need to have a certain amount of pressure at the screens, so a funnel with a hose connected should be used to gravity feed the spout holding the screens. Incidentally, this setup can be used to add beautiful art to the head of the pint. Now that is a rare skill these days that this beer drinker truly appreciates!
So, I would recommend using 3 to 5 0.05mm screens about 3mm apart, i.e. not touching so that the beer will flow properly. Then most of the bubbles will be of the correct size to cascade. Some will agglomerate, initiating the effect. I haven't tried it, so some experimentation with the number spacing and size of the screens as well as the amount of gravity potential will be necessary. I'm going to try it, and if I succeed, then I will try to get my results posted for all to use!
About the widget - I suspect that that thing simply creates really small bubbles. I intend to check this hypothesis over the next week or so as well.
About the study - I don't think that it really provided new insights, as I have known about the screens well before this study even began. I was told by someone who had known it for years. I suspect that the folks at Guiness have known it for decades. Still, to see it scientifically demonstrated in such a way will silence many a self-proclaimed beer scholar! The most important discovery in my opinion is the size of the bubble requuired for the cascade.
One final observation - the argument that N2 sinks while CO2 rises makes no sense. CO2 is heavier (1.977 g/l) than N2 (1.2506 g/l), so if either sinks, it would be the CO2 before the N2. Of course, being a gas, they both are significantly more bouyant than the Guiness... I have heard this argument vehemently debated over many a pint of the world's finest stout.
... the polyphase electric motor. Singlehandedly invented by Nikola Tesla, who also invented the flourescent lightbulb, the wireless telegraph. Without Tesla's invention, we wouldn't have electricity as we know it. So much else fell into place afterwards, its now almost impossible to imagine a world without it! Tony Christney