This is the San Diego Union Tribune, so chances are good that the "staff writer" is nothing but a glorified reformatter of press releases. Their reporting is so bad even my parakeet won't crap on it.
I've been using Garmin GPS receivers for years that have a power button that doubles as the backlight brightness control. If you hold the button down, it turns the unit off or on, but if you press it quickly it alters the backlight.
Were these "voters off the street" wearing dark suits and dark glasses and small 2-way radios by any chance?
Mostly they were technical people who were trying to vote on the way to work. When they saw what was happening, they volunteered to help out, and the poll workers let them. One guy phoned in to a radio show and described how he had poked around in the Diebold machine to find the application, saying he could have replaced it with no problem with no one being the wiser.
When I first heard, early on election day, the nature ofthe problems they were having, I guessed what was going on. They were using machines running Windows CE as the OS. The application code itself was in a flash memory, but they were relying on some kind of shortcut in the volatile system RAM to execute that code when the machine was turned on. The trouble was, when the poll workers were trained, they were given the machines to take home with them. SOme of them sat for long periods without power, so their batteries ran down and the RAM got erased, wiping out whatever it was that was supposed to execute the code automatically. The poll workers weren't trained for that contingency and had no clue what to do. Many of the polling places had voters, off the street, trying to help them diagnoe the problem and boot the software.
This whole thing was a fiasco from the beginning. Not only did they use known-uncertified code, they let poll workers take the machines home, protected only by a peel-off sticker for "security". They then had a bunch of unqualified and unvetted civilans being given access to try to fix the problems. Unbelievable.
Disposal is much more fun in an emergency
on
HDD Assault Cannon
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I worked at a DoD site once. If we were in danger of being overrun by the enemy (since it was in Hawaii, I guess that'd be either the North Koreans, China, or the Japanese out for a little payback), we were supposed to haul the crypto gear and all storage media out to the parking lot, smack the hell out of it with sledges, pile thermite on top and melt it into slag. I was sorely disappointed that I never got the opportunity.
Back when I first started posting here, a mention of Microsoft in any context other than consigning it to the fifth circle of hell would have earned the poster a moderation beat-down and major flamage.
I won't even mention what happened when I made an admiring reference to a female who wasn't Natalie Portman...
... and I like random shuffling because listening to songs in the same sequence all the time imprints the order on my brain. Knowing that "I love Rock and Roll" ALWAYS follows "Pretty Paper" makes music much less enjoyable.
What I'd like to see is a Tivo-like feature where the player takes your preferences and downloads other songs that you might like as well. Sorting thru tons of dreck to find the gems is so, like, last century.
The main objection to desalination plants is that they are highly energy intensive.
Big deal. Just build a nuclear power plant next to them. Problem solved. Oh, and the excess energy can be used to power the baby seal slaughterhouse and for rendering whale blubber.
imagine the Low Tech resistence to these being specially trained raptors, who will seek out and capture these micros
There's no money in THAT. What we need are big defense contracts to build anti-micro-UAVs. Then we'll have to arm our micro UAVs so they can defend themselves, then we'll have to have anti-micro-UAV air-air missiles, and then...
I've always wondered what sort of load a site experiences as a result of a SlashDot appearance, so I printed out his page before I submitted it. His counter was at 35546 at the time. I just checked and his counter is at 85266; almost 50,000 visitors as the result of SlashDot, and still climbing. Nothing like some major news site like the New York Times, I'm sure, but pretty impressive.
I was standing on the El platform in Chicago on a fine February morning, waiting for my train, when my PDA stoped working. It took me a minute to realize that it was 18 degrees outside - well below what the Palm could handle.
One thing I've discovered through my research for a device I'm considering building is that LCDs come in "regular" and "extended temperature" versions. The regular ones fade out when the temp drops below 32F. The extended temp ones have a special fluid that can go down to 0F before this happens. I'm guessing that your PDA was still working, but the display was invisible at that temperature.
Either I cannot pick up sarcasm, or the poster seems to think this is something we all indeed do want. Why exactly?
In my case, I'm supplying a major law enforcement agency with an application running on PDAs. Those guys fall down hills, drop from helicopters, crawl through the mud, dive for cover, and generally beat the living hell out of whatever they're carrying. Nothing less than this would survive. Currently we're using the Panasonic Toughbook 01. Amazingly tough device. I think it's even cheaper than the subject of the article.
I'm not usually in favor of increasing government regulation on business, but I'm also a big believer in transparency and traceability. It looks to me like making the issuance of paper receipts to employees mandatory would be in order. As the person quoted in the article notes, it prevents shaving from happening in businesses that have that provision. California has wisely decided to add the paper receipt to its electronic voting systems to prevent equivalent abuses.
... a lot of the people complaining are coming from societies that are just as intrusive if not more so. The UK, for example, is rapidly covering itself in surveillance and traffic cameras, and refusing to divulge an encryption key when demanded by the authorities is a jailable offense.
Isn't the number of articles you get published a big part of career advancement in science? Wouldn't what amounts to the emergence of a vanity press undermine that measure of one's worth?
if we are required to have tracking systems, at least they will be inexpensive and under the control of non-commercial entities
... because God knows there's a pile of money to be made in knowing the whereabouts of derelicts, drug addicts, and the addlepated, and we don't want to just GIVE that information away.
Problem is, PayPal limits you to a $2K cumulative transaction total if you don't give them access to an account (which I won't do, at least not an account I use for anything else). How do you deal with that?
I went and opened a credit union account for PayPal use. Low balance requirement, so I keep next to nothing in it. When it comes time to pay, I always choose "other funding options" and tell PayPal to use my credit card, not the crdit union account. Of course, PayPal always tries to talk me out of it by extolling the wonderful benefits of a chance at a drawing or some such thing, but I just click the button that says to use the CC.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the San Diego Union Tribune, so chances are good that the "staff writer" is nothing but a glorified reformatter of press releases. Their reporting is so bad even my parakeet won't crap on it.
... when did we SlashDotters start bathing? Did I miss a memo?
I've been using Garmin GPS receivers for years that have a power button that doubles as the backlight brightness control. If you hold the button down, it turns the unit off or on, but if you press it quickly it alters the backlight.
Mostly they were technical people who were trying to vote on the way to work. When they saw what was happening, they volunteered to help out, and the poll workers let them. One guy phoned in to a radio show and described how he had poked around in the Diebold machine to find the application, saying he could have replaced it with no problem with no one being the wiser.
When I first heard, early on election day, the nature ofthe problems they were having, I guessed what was going on. They were using machines running Windows CE as the OS. The application code itself was in a flash memory, but they were relying on some kind of shortcut in the volatile system RAM to execute that code when the machine was turned on. The trouble was, when the poll workers were trained, they were given the machines to take home with them. SOme of them sat for long periods without power, so their batteries ran down and the RAM got erased, wiping out whatever it was that was supposed to execute the code automatically. The poll workers weren't trained for that contingency and had no clue what to do. Many of the polling places had voters, off the street, trying to help them diagnoe the problem and boot the software.
This whole thing was a fiasco from the beginning. Not only did they use known-uncertified code, they let poll workers take the machines home, protected only by a peel-off sticker for "security". They then had a bunch of unqualified and unvetted civilans being given access to try to fix the problems. Unbelievable.
I worked at a DoD site once. If we were in danger of being overrun by the enemy (since it was in Hawaii, I guess that'd be either the North Koreans, China, or the Japanese out for a little payback), we were supposed to haul the crypto gear and all storage media out to the parking lot, smack the hell out of it with sledges, pile thermite on top and melt it into slag. I was sorely disappointed that I never got the opportunity.
Back when I first started posting here, a mention of Microsoft in any context other than consigning it to the fifth circle of hell would have earned the poster a moderation beat-down and major flamage.
...
I won't even mention what happened when I made an admiring reference to a female who wasn't Natalie Portman
I hadn't heard of iRate before. Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.
... and I like random shuffling because listening to songs in the same sequence all the time imprints the order on my brain. Knowing that "I love Rock and Roll" ALWAYS follows "Pretty Paper" makes music much less enjoyable.
What I'd like to see is a Tivo-like feature where the player takes your preferences and downloads other songs that you might like as well. Sorting thru tons of dreck to find the gems is so, like, last century.
I just went on a walking tour of the house, and I don't have a single thing with a blue LED in it. My crap is ancient. I'm poor. Jesus.
Big deal. Just build a nuclear power plant next to them. Problem solved. Oh, and the excess energy can be used to power the baby seal slaughterhouse and for rendering whale blubber.
There's no money in THAT. What we need are big defense contracts to build anti-micro-UAVs. Then we'll have to arm our micro UAVs so they can defend themselves, then we'll have to have anti-micro-UAV air-air missiles, and then ...
I've always wondered what sort of load a site experiences as a result of a SlashDot appearance, so I printed out his page before I submitted it. His counter was at 35546 at the time. I just checked and his counter is at 85266; almost 50,000 visitors as the result of SlashDot, and still climbing. Nothing like some major news site like the New York Times, I'm sure, but pretty impressive.
... when all the other drivers get out of their cars and beat the speeder senseless, for causing the light to turn.
No, but put a silicon blank in it and it can etch you a new CPU.
One thing I've discovered through my research for a device I'm considering building is that LCDs come in "regular" and "extended temperature" versions. The regular ones fade out when the temp drops below 32F. The extended temp ones have a special fluid that can go down to 0F before this happens. I'm guessing that your PDA was still working, but the display was invisible at that temperature.
In my case, I'm supplying a major law enforcement agency with an application running on PDAs. Those guys fall down hills, drop from helicopters, crawl through the mud, dive for cover, and generally beat the living hell out of whatever they're carrying. Nothing less than this would survive. Currently we're using the Panasonic Toughbook 01. Amazingly tough device. I think it's even cheaper than the subject of the article.
I'm not usually in favor of increasing government regulation on business, but I'm also a big believer in transparency and traceability. It looks to me like making the issuance of paper receipts to employees mandatory would be in order. As the person quoted in the article notes, it prevents shaving from happening in businesses that have that provision. California has wisely decided to add the paper receipt to its electronic voting systems to prevent equivalent abuses.
... a lot of the people complaining are coming from societies that are just as intrusive if not more so. The UK, for example, is rapidly covering itself in surveillance and traffic cameras, and refusing to divulge an encryption key when demanded by the authorities is a jailable offense.
Leading to the equivalent of Google-spoofing, I presume.
Isn't the number of articles you get published a big part of career advancement in science? Wouldn't what amounts to the emergence of a vanity press undermine that measure of one's worth?
... because God knows there's a pile of money to be made in knowing the whereabouts of derelicts, drug addicts, and the addlepated, and we don't want to just GIVE that information away.
I went and opened a credit union account for PayPal use. Low balance requirement, so I keep next to nothing in it. When it comes time to pay, I always choose "other funding options" and tell PayPal to use my credit card, not the crdit union account. Of course, PayPal always tries to talk me out of it by extolling the wonderful benefits of a chance at a drawing or some such thing, but I just click the button that says to use the CC.
I didn't think that it actually necessary to add, "and have it do it."
I always wanted to say, "Open channel D," into my fountain pen.