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User: Xeranar

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  1. Rubes playing a game of false dichotomy on 7000 e-Voting Machines Now Deemed Worthless By Irish Government · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Since the 1950s the area of PA I grew up in used electric voting machines (i.e. electric tally machines) that were in fact infallible barring a mechanical breakdown. Nobody could tamper with it, it kept a tally using mechanical reels and could tally into the 10s of thousands from what I understand of it. Each unit would print out a simple list tallying who won in what race by column and number (it was up to the person to put in the appropriate slip for name and position, all were printed at a central place and placed into the machine by verified workers with multiple oversights). The machines were accurate, simple, and they only needed to be plugged in to produce a light, close the shade, and run the reels themselves. Hand ballots are confusing and illogical in that people must either write on them or punch through them. Electronic voting can be tampered with and is utterly insecure by comparison to the other two options. Yet nobody ever contemplates a mechanical solution because that is far too old-fashioned it seems.

    I'm sure it is possible to game a mechanical counting machine given enough time and effort but if Florida had had these machines installed the election would have been decided almost immediately and require next to no time to recount. The sorry reality is though that Diebold and their compatriots got paid huge sums to build somewhat secure devices that are too easily tooled with and nothing is going to change that because they have the lobbying power to keep going. To be fair though, I doubt fraud in 99% of cases. I'm more worried for general bugs and failures that cause these machines to malfunction.

  2. Re:Real Alternative? on Ubuntu Tablet OS To Take On Android, iOS · · Score: 1

    Ugh, I know the term "power user" is so over-used. Lord knows I am not a serious coder, I barely remember Basic and know a minimum of C that I picked up at computer camp. Still the overwhelming number of PC users will use Windows and never surf the web stronger than facebook and whatever sites they read. But "Power user" is a better term than "enthusiast" because it insinuates that they have a passion or strong preference for Linux in it's various flavors.

  3. Re:Real Alternative? on Ubuntu Tablet OS To Take On Android, iOS · · Score: 1

    Foolish Owl did my job for me but let me reiterate this. Good design has LITTLE with gaining market share when the other players have billions in cash. Apple is trading on cache and upper-class perception. Android is slowly getting into the market but has struggled with packaging more than OS. So how is a tiny linux distro going to offer something that android does?

  4. Real Alternative? on Ubuntu Tablet OS To Take On Android, iOS · · Score: 1, Insightful

    How about nobody cares about that. Unless you have a multi-billion dollar marketing budget to match Android or iOS and a market place that can run all of the apps that Android does Ubuntu has no chance of being a serious player. I'm not against more players in the game but lets be real with ourselves, Ubuntu is used by power users who care to work with Linux. I'm going to take the plunge this summer when I can safely back up all my data and take a few days to play with it but I realize I'm part of a tiny minority. While the minority may be wealthy enough to make this venture possible it is highly unlikely they'll ever unseat one of the big two or even be a serious third. Android won't win awards from the open source community but they aren't a walled garden and that is in particular unless Ubuntu can seriously cut the cost of Android products will have a hard time competing in the marketplace for mOS's

  5. Re:Who uses technology versus who talks about it on Ask Slashdot: Which Candidates For Geek Issues? · · Score: 1

    Desegregation in the Civil Rights Act was a constitutional necessity as it finally establishes a firm law prohibiting people from discriminating based on the big 4 (Race, Color, Religion, or national origin). Regardless of what you believe in if you think some sort of petty property right trumps those 4 you are in fact a bigot, if not directly but by proxy. You don't get a pass by being a libertine because you chose which "liberties" you wished to enforce and came down on the side of bigots at large.

    Did you seriously just conflate SLAVERY with income tax? Or did you mean the 14th amendment? All amendments were passed legally and while I know you're a kook so responding to you is like flash cards at a blind man, I have to wonder how stupid you truly are? Did your mom and dad raise you to be this goofy or did you grow into your stupidity?

  6. Re:Who uses technology versus who talks about it on Ask Slashdot: Which Candidates For Geek Issues? · · Score: 1

    I love the Paul defenders...They stand up to defend him as a non-racist when he firmly supports state's rights that inevitably lead to racism. The man has backed the people who wrote in his newsletters and lets really stop beating around the bush. The Republicans have been using white blowback over civil rights since the 1970s when Nixon used the "Southern Strategy" followed by Reagan's speech at the Texas State Fair just before announcing his run for presidency about supporting state's rights to put "things back the way they were." Each generation of Republican runs on this platform of "hard work" only to squelch everybody who isn't an elite millionaire. Paul is the worst offender because where he isn't a liar or a charlatan, he's an ideologue with a hell-bent agenda on turning the clock back to the antebellum period using a poor understanding of the economic system and monetary system to do it.

    Paul wrote and published a book about ending the federal reserve that any series of books prior to that prove is full of falsehoods and lies. The man is an ideologue without a clue of how to justify his insane position.

  7. Re:Who uses technology versus who talks about it on Ask Slashdot: Which Candidates For Geek Issues? · · Score: 1

    But then we would be getting lynchings in southern states and robber barons in the north and in the west both. Politics is a compromise and Ron Paul is a disturbed little racist man.

  8. Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash on Do Online Educational Badges Threaten Conventional Education Models? · · Score: 2

    Actually yes, I am justifying a professor moving on for the sake of the other students because in college it is less hand-holding and more learning. Those with functional autism have the right to seek ou
    t aid from the professor or learning support but don't have the right to drag the class down. As a whole though I never support bullying and I have yet to visibly see it at the University I teach at. I see awkward body language and have had students complain to me about the one or two students who do to a mental deficiency weren't able to remain quiet but they never made any attempt to harm them or adversely interact with them.

    Course you're just an AC, so why am I even replying?

    PS: College is a right of entrance, passing is the privilege.

  9. Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash on Do Online Educational Badges Threaten Conventional Education Models? · · Score: 1

    If you have autism the odds of your success are mucher lower. Also I have yet to have met a class that was so bothered by a physical handicap that it defeated them. Ultimately you're trying to justify the obtuse.

  10. Re:the problem is profit on Do Online Educational Badges Threaten Conventional Education Models? · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Or you're just a loud minority supported by an even smaller minority who want to break public education due to their political goals and personal views alongside their ability to profit. This is a better mousetrap conundrum, if you can do it you'll get rich but nobody has. Humans only learn in a handful of ways and frankly a traditional academic setting is preferred.

  11. Re:*Celebrity* Rights? on Apple Threatens Steve Jobs Doll Maker With Lawsuit · · Score: 1

    I'm not 100% familiar with the wording but our own likenesses are protected by law from the start. I'm imagining this law applies to people who have done explicit actions to gain them notoriety rather than popular momentum (like CowBoyNeal). If anything if somebody attempted to use your likeness after your death I am sure your estate could sue successfully under this law. The only way to overturn the law for vagueness would be to flood the courts with indiscriminate cases.

  12. They want to sell in the US... on Apple Threatens Steve Jobs Doll Maker With Lawsuit · · Score: 1

    So before everybody gets in a tizzy over international trade they need to remember any packaged item like this sold in the US has to get through customs and be OK-ed for sale. Clearly Apple is suing to stop them from making it all together claiming rights over his image and such but their best chance of victory is suing in civil courts where they can stop the sale in the US and other countries with reciprocation with the US (i.e. most of the industrialized world). Honestly, Apple should be asking for a cut and letting them be produced rather than fighting, the longer they keep the Jobs image alive the longer they'll be more proliferate.

  13. Re:What about the coreligionists? on Filesharing Now an Official Religion In Sweden · · Score: 1

    Deism is a subset of theism. They aren't an equivalent just because they use the same ending. Deism is something like being agnostic about an afterlife but feeling comfortably sure there is a theistic being out there. The fundamental difference for Deists versus more traditional Christians (Deism isn't exclusively Christian but almost always relates in Christian-majority countries) is that Christians believe God takes a more direct role in their lives. Deism is a more self-directed belief. Still doesn't remove them from believing, just makes them somewhat less religious as an active participant.

  14. What about the coreligionists? on Filesharing Now an Official Religion In Sweden · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure how Sweden's freedom of religion works but here in the US there would atleast be a decade of legal battles to establish their church's fundamentals and then severe restrictions on how the file sharing would work since it would at best be legal between two coreligionists of this church but not amongst others. I find it intriguing that the new political tactic is to approach things using religion's exemption rules to try and create a gray area and call a law into question. It's effective but at what cost of alienating coreligionists who see this as a plain attack on their beliefs? Also, before the random "Christianity is fool of bigots" stuff, remember atleast 80% of the left-wing is still religious, it isn't a question of which wing you believe in, it's a question of belief and the use of it as a weapon against unjust laws...

  15. Re:Really? on The Un-Internet and War On General Purpose Computers · · Score: 1

    Apple doesn't sell OS X to everybody and therefor curtails their 3rd party app production. It's not that apple is the police securing their borders, they're the homeowners association stopping people of color from moving into the neighborhood. It's a matter that Apple holds the cards and doesn't offer major access. You don't have to accept that argument but it is why Apple is not as popular and will remain 2nd to Windows/Linux. Not everybody wants to live in your redlined suburb no matter how pretty it maybe.

  16. Re:Superphones? Cheap is the answer for them... on Speculating On What a Microsoft Superphone Might Mean · · Score: 1

    Who cares about profitability in this sense? If Android phones keep eating market share from the iPhone (which is eventual if not massive) the need to be "more profitable" is limited. You're really comparing apples to oranges. If we calculate the value of sales of all Android phones against the iPhone you'll find it falls short, it's a matter or rigging in the stats in this case to favor one or the other. Long-term profitability is in favor of Android simply because marketing isn't going away.

    At the top end, Android phones are just as expensive (up front costs and monthly plans) as the iPhone. At the bottom end, the iPhone 3GS is $1 with a contract

    This is such a misnomer. An iPhone 3GS isn't comparable in terms of abilities with free android phones or low-cost models at this point. The 3GS is nearly 3 years old and falls behind every Android phone produced in the last year in terms of OS updatability (meaning you will never get iOS5 on it) versus almost every new android phone getting 4.0. I'm not arguing one is better than the other but cheap phones drive sales in many cases. Apple will always have their segment but they lost their shirt in the PC world on price and accessibility and again when the mobile market matures it'll happen there too. MS has a chance with great cheap phones to recover but it's more about beating android than taking Apple on, Apple is an also-ran that doesn't know it yet because of the massive closed-ecosystem they insist upon.

  17. Superphones? Cheap is the answer for them... on Speculating On What a Microsoft Superphone Might Mean · · Score: 1

    iPhones are a commodity with a certain amount of cache, it will eventually collapse. Android is the reasonably priced alternative used by the masses. Unless MS can come in with phones at half the price of Android phones with all the features this will be a two pony race for some time. As Android and Chrome grow though I suspect it could eventually eat into the Windows market which is the biggest strength that MS has for making Windows mobile viable. Of course this is all speculation and at best conjecture. Things will play out with time, one thing is certain though is that Android will take 50% of the market alone and eventually start eating Apple's lunch if MS can't compete.

  18. The company failed to make their case.. on Actual Damages For 1 Download = Cost of a 1 License · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Which has nothing to do with illegal file sharing and everything to do with industrial espionage. 20-20 couldn't prove that Real View stole actual code or reused it in a similar manner which was the crux of their case for loss. On top of that they refused to establish a factual loss due to competition that the product time that they went head-to-head over. I understand the judge setting aside the original verdict's value and I assume 20-20 will appeal but they need to bring something more than what they assume is obvious to the trial. Their expert testimony was lackluster and saying development costs "millions and millions" when you are a seriously established company and have records is just pathetic...

  19. Re:They're still around? on Occupy Protesters Are Building a Facebook for the 99% · · Score: 1

    Belief and looking like in this case are identical. Nobody in normal circles were assuming they looked like losers or druggies. In fact if you traveled in average circles people were initially confused by the movement and only when Fox News and Right-wing radio started calling them druggies and losers did the public image shift at all. It's a matter of perception and your perception is tied to your belief in this case, it wasn't as if you discounted your own notion, you used it out of hand. So perhaps I may have overstated but your own statement damns you.

  20. Re:They're still around? on Occupy Protesters Are Building a Facebook for the 99% · · Score: 1

    The tea party pushed for socially conservative and moderately incompetent candidates that won in rural states. In other words they were republicans who succeeded in pushing their own party further to the right. They were never against anything but the bailouts and actually believe that somehow freddie mac and fannie mae caused the collapse of our economy along with minorities who were given unsecured loans through government programs (total: 6% of all bankruptcies). The OWS were politically naive and were part of that political center who assume right and left are alike. In the end the OWS message was taken by so called "true americans" as hippies and such. Essentially your fundamental belief that they were druggies and/or losers is reason enough to realize you're clueless and this knowledge will bounce off you..but maybe you'll learn.

  21. Re:Damn you google for deciding what an obscenity on How a Gesture Could Get Your Google+ Profile Picture Yanked · · Score: 1

    If you are not suggesting that the middle finger is an explicit act of revolution or resistance you're admitting it is simple offense and thus should be policed like anything else. For the record go search "Fighting words Supreme Court" and the decision will come up, it doesn't protect offensive statements and threats clearly meant to incite violence. Of course simple statements of fact are protected but as stated offenses like that are not.

    Your personal disagreement is about as subjective on my perception of filth. In other words, who cares what you think? I surely don't, I was merely pointing out society at large seems to concur with me on this simple issue. I do walk through life assuming I won't get mugged, insulted, or shown something I don't particularly find savory for the most part. I know I won't successfully navigate such a world for the most part but I am pleased as punch that Google has decided to police their own social network over something obscene. If you don't like it, oh well, I deal with thousands of things I don't like. But as we've come to the conclusion of, neither of our opinions mean much.

  22. Re:Damn you google for deciding what an obscenity on How a Gesture Could Get Your Google+ Profile Picture Yanked · · Score: 1

    This is so cute....I love how you make a huge exception to the rule to justify the use of the middle finger as some sort of epic statement about the world. It's a singular hand gesture that means "fuck you." It isn't an epic statement about anything and the proliferation of it instead of intelligent conversation is a true issue in society. Freedom of Speech applies across the board hence why we have cases of libel and slander. The problem is the supreme court ruled fighting words (i.e. insults and swears) unprotected by the constitution. Thus this is still within google's purview and rightfully so. Making it some sort of greater demonstration does nothing, they aren't taking down "Free Tibet" images or something controversial in that vain, they're keeping their service free of filth as an extension of their choice to run it.

  23. Re:Go cry to your mother on How a Gesture Could Get Your Google+ Profile Picture Yanked · · Score: 1

    Slippery slope down the lane......Slippery slope of stupidity...

    Removing middle finger pictures is a statement on obscenity and isn't really a great fight over censorship and intrusiveness is a relative concept on the internet. Think of G+ as a big cafe, you wouldn't flip the bird there if you were a reasonable person, so why do it on G+?

  24. Damn you google for deciding what an obscenity is! on How a Gesture Could Get Your Google+ Profile Picture Yanked · · Score: 2

    I mean clearly I should be free to display idiotic hand gestures to anybody in my circle and those who search me! GRR! Ok, really, it's google service and their decision to not let you have the middle finger as a profile picture is their business, something I passively support since we're all big boys and girls who need to use our words and not come across as popped collar pink shirt wearing frat losers. I know freedom of speech is a vague concept most of us understand but the middle finger isn't really protected and google is within their rights to do this.

  25. Re:Let me rephrase that on World's Worst PR Guy Gives His Side · · Score: 1

    The problem with this line of thinking is that in the world of email and delayed responses we have wonderful amounts of time to think of how we're going to respond. Nobody is going to get upset if Ocean Marketing took a day to respond to his email, it was practically expected. Instead of responding though with a well-thought-out answer about how they aren't here and that the production is slow and how sorry they are this guy blathers about he needs to man up on top of it all. It wasn't a healthy response in person let alone with time to think about it.

    The internet did good this time by exposing what a repugnant ass this character was. His career isn't ruined though, I'm sure some marketing firm will love his bull-headed approach and will snap him up at double the salary.