Babbage had plenty of patrons in his day. If you read more about his life, you'll find he spent 12 years building the Difference engine, before scrapping it. In his mind it was too specific to the problem at hand, calculating tables for polynomials for the Royal Astronomical Society.
Just as NIST does, the RAS had high hopes for the project that ultimately went overbudget and never completed (until recently, on a whim). Ultimately, I think QC will suffer a similar fate, as its designers slowly realize how they might be able to build a general QC framework.
My guess is its a set of data like a public key and a region to encrypt and compare the results to. Essentially its a way of doing an extra cool CRC on the binary. This technique was used exensively (and repeatedly) in Spyro 4. The idea was that the pirates didn't do much testing on their own releases, and failed to catch most of the checks built into the later game levels. This lead to multiple patches being released by the pirates over the course of a few months, by which time many would be warezers had given up and bought the game. Of course, its difficult to scientifically measure the effectiveness of any particular technique on the market, especially something as subtle as antipiracy measures.
Back before Counter-Strike was on Steam, when a new release came out, eight billion servers provided mirrors of the content, but were difficult to find. Since apparently HL2 will also come with CS:Source, the demand will be gargantuan. They're probably trying to alleviate that by distributing parts of the game like level data, models and textures (which are the bulk of the disk space) across a span of time. They probably aren't including the binary yet, as its only like 2 megabytes and is prone to last minute bug fixes.
Thats not the only possible reason, though. They also have to consider their brick-and-mortar counterparts, who you don't want to feel screwed in some fashion. They also might be using the download requests as a gauge of popularity, or as a method of advertising, and an incentive to buy.
I almost never find any cheaters while playing DoD. It might be a case of a less popular game catching fewer rodents, but I like to think the challenge-response mechanism helps a lot. Eventually I think people will figure out a way to circumvent such attacks, as you appear to have noticed. If Valve is worth their salt, they'll have to move to limit the information sent to players, giving them only what they should be able to observe and nothing more. Sending only the character positions you can directly observe would be one method, which would destroy wallhacks, but leaves aimbots unscathed. I think the only good way to counter aimbots longterm is to offload rendering to a server, but that's borderline insane. Both of these suggestions mean an increase in lag, but that's what we get for using a system where failures to transmit mean waiting for random milliseconds. If you've got a better way to stop cheating, I'd love to hear and patent it.
It also puts Sierra in the not so enviable position of selling a product directly to the customers while also selling it to retail. Retail isn't happy when they get undercut by the guy giving it to them. Especially places like walmart. Of course, they're also building a way to eventually circumvent the retailers AND the publishers, which Sierra isn't happy about, as you noted.
Of course, not every game can be sold via steam like scenarios. The FPS market comes with a lot of assumptions about the demographic. Dominately technical, online (broadband)and expensive computers. Take out any of those and steam just doesn't make sense. If Valve wants to branch out to a broader demographic by making games in the vein of Popcap, you really need something tied much closer to the browser than a standalone app just for shopping. Or if they want to sell something like Deer Hunter to people that don't live on the internet or read PC Gamer magazines, then a nice orange box at walmart is still your best bet.
I've seen a lot of USB snoop suggestions, which are a fine solution. But if you don't find that acceptable, I'd suggest looking into a Controller Area Network(CAN) module instead. You can find PC adaptors for this very cheaply, sometimes as little as 20 dollars. It's specifically designed for systems where you know exactly the kind of communications that will go on, and who's more important than who. It's used in a lot of automotive situations, though there's a growing group that doesn't think it's safe enough.
Disreguarding your personal thesis on Iraq, how did it come to be that the USA is a major supporter of Israel, and yet our presidents come to the negotiations table and impartially coach negotiations along between Palestine and Israel? Why don't we just make it the 51st state?
I realize that some/many of the neighboring countries don't appreciate the forceful introduction of yet another faction into their already narrowly divided region. Realistically, we'll never leave Israel, much in the same way we're not going to leave Saudi Arabia or Iraq. But I still hope for the day where Israel can be free to make its own mistakes, without our need for specific intervention.
If you really want to get a cross section of programming expertise, why not go with a PowerPC board? They're a popular embedded cpu, and they scale upwards quite well-- the cube uses something similar, and the next iteration of Nintendo and Microsoft intend to go that route as well. In terms of employable skills, it certainly beats the x86 and SPARC ASM I was taught in class.
Its quite funny to read the technical prospectus on this thing. " 4-Deep instruction pipeline (Fetch, Decode, Execute, Write)". Wow. " Multiple interrupt sources." What technical marvel.
As far as I can tell, the link is actually a crude form of satire. At least, that's what I think when I hear the promotion of putting terminal handling code in the kernel.
I can't imagine that many reporters earn enough to purchase your standard 100 share bundle of stock out of the blue. That may be part of the problem. I know I don't have that kinda money, but I'm not invested in ANYTHING right now. So I didn't go through the screening process.
Another possible scenario is that memebers of the press have undue influence over the market and may not be welcome in an IPO. CNBC has moved to a disclosure scenario, and there's been rumors of completly divorcing their reporters from market ownership. Fortunately for them, CNBC is a fairly strong company that can assist in manipulation charges. NPR probably isn't.
Well, partially, the investment bankers don't like the deal. Normally they get a 7 percent commission, but Google managed to get both a reduced rate AND a nontraditional market. Personally, I think that investment bankers NEED to switch if they want to avoid problems with the SEC, and Google should be entitled to a discount for putting up with the risk of a first time scenario.
From the banker's perspective, I think they would have made the same amount of money at the traditional method and rate as they would the dutch auction. Price it at 20 dollars, watch the price jump just long enough for them flip their holdings, and rake in a 7 percent commission on revenue. OR, price it four times as much for a third of the commission, and take most of the first day jump out of the market and into your client's pockets.
I wonder how many writes a specific address in a physical harddisk recieves in the lifetime of the disk. Certainly it wouldn't be a good idea for something like swap space. But for normal disk usage, I'd imagine very few hdds see that kind of write activity outside of swap and databases. But even in that kind of situation, professionals use RAID as a protection against such failures.
You're right. I know tons of people who played a game once, and totally grasp the mechanics of destroying the mother brain in Metroid within five seconds. How could I have missed such an obvious cue? Clearly "game literacy" meant "I play Spades on Yahoo!" rather than "I spent hours beating Metroid when I was a kid".
The fact of the matter is that the games are based on a wide plethora of materials. Also I resent the title "hardcore." It comes with this pornographic stigma and all. It's in comparable terms to the title "user"--the only other people (besides computer programmers) that call their clients users are drug dealers!
That this game that depends on being well versed in video game concepts, was universally panned by my friends. They all had a try at it at EB, and they all thought it looked and was stupid and pointless. Really, about the only bright side to the game was the intro to the motorscooter levels. Monkies trump any argument I could ever make.
Fine. Maybe the Solar Car challenge has outlived its purpose. People know you can dork around in solar cars, but its not very practical. Maybe proponents of alternative fuels should sponsor a pratical solar car race. The requirements should be similar in nature to the GT, which if I recall, call for things like a passenger seat and a trunk space.
There's a longstanding fact, that when two cars collide the heavier one wins. I don't think there's anything heavier out there than the Hummer, weighing five tons and all. When a good but not so bright samaritan parked his Suburban in the middle of the road to help out an accident just ahead, he earned himself another accident for his troubles. My brother wrongly assumed he was turning left rather than stopped, and totaled his lightweight CRX against the rear/underneath it. The Suburban suffered minor bumper damage. The CRX looked like an accordian when it was over.
I don't personally think there's a need to ban them from the roads, although apparently others do. How about a stricter liscence to drive such vehicles? In neither case (the CRX nor the solar car) was the heavy vehicle at fault.
In all seriousness, this should be a wakeup call to solar car competitions. My friend was involved in solar car last year and crashed into a wall when the tire blew out. He was fine, but in general safety is a minimal concern, and the same vehicles that race on specially made tracks all too often compete in highway driving contests. You won't find solar car teams going through the design looking for impact weaknesses or designing in crunch points. This is critically important as your solar cars are increasingly relying on various chemical batteries that are none too friendly. Litium ion is pretty popular, but litium gas can kill you pretty quickly if you're exposed.
It is a tragedy, but I can only hope man may learn from his mistakes. Or at least let tragedy create an open forum for the disscusion of relevant concerns.
Just looking at the tables for sega, they seem to be doing okay, especially in what's widely held as a downturn. They doubled earnings from a year ago, and their predictions call for 8 billion, somewhere between 4 and 8 times more than they're making now. Of course, predictions tend to be optimistic, but even if its only 4 billion, they've more than doubled earnings.
I'd be more worried about Sammy, who if I'm reading this chart correctly, earned 3 billion yen on 27 billion billion yen!
Debian women? Does that mean they don't shave? All chauvanistic kidding aside, I find it a bit strange that a recruiting tool has grown around Amaya, the only noted Debian Developer. Its akin to the problem in acadamia: the establishment is lacking in perspective to attract new people, and you can't just bring in new people to promote the establishement to new people-- they lack perspective of the establishment!
I don't think its nessecarily that CS is a guys thing, but that Computer Games are a guy's thing. You can argue that the biggest selling games boast a 50-50 or higher (towards female) gender ratio, but the facts are that the majority of sales are for men, the majority of titles are aimed at 14-21 year old boys, and the media is so heavily slanted towards men that I would imagine it being rather offputting.
The reason I say this is because you'd be surprised how many guys pick CS because they figure its their ticket into game development. Most realize that its going to be far harder than they ever imagined, and wander off. But even among those who remain, the title 'Game Developer' isn't something most grads would resent. Especially compared to 'Help Desk Assistant'.
I also listened to that station by happenchance. I don't regularly listen to the radio at home or at work, but my car has no cd player, giving me the opportunity to enjoy the recent growth in alternative/rock stations, after many died the year I graduated from high school.
In part, I believe that its a form of censorship, but there's a larger fiasco going on here. Consumers in areas large enough to have retail music shops like Best Buy or Circuit city, ie places that put out ads paid for by the Record Labels under certain conditions, have been paying too much for their music. I'm not pleased with the settlement going half cash and half donated CDs. The argument for accept these terms is that it would benefit the poor who can't as easily partake in the settlement or the altered behavior. But dividing the provided music between acceptable and unnacceptable only serves to widen the gap between those who appreciate unnacceptable music and those who don't. You don't make friends by telling people their beliefs are unfounded and dangerous to society.
And of course, the record companies are happy to let the issue fly in the face of prosceutors, rather than their own cuplability in providing from excess stock or taking their own share of the hoopla around giving out violent media to the public libraries. The best irony is that if the AG hadn't chosen to filter the media provided, he'd likely come under fire with conservative local media for not doing it, complete with fingers point around about the urban blight of Kansas City, KS.
The big problem of course, is that the "industrialization" has already happened, and software in america looks disturbingly like steel factories of the previous generation: losing to overseas competition.
In part, it's due to protective moves of foreign companies trying to establish their own software industry. But American software rarely enjoys the opportunity to compete with other American software companies. I was dissapointed with the Department of Justice's missing teeth once a conviction was upheld against MS. It might seem that punishing MS might be a harsh detriment to the American economy, but this monopolization reduces incentive to compete, not just overseas, but in America too. No incentive to compete translates into a direct lack of tech jobs, especially in costlier places like the United States of America. By most every account Microsoft's behavior has not changed.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has only learned that violating the law is a winning investment. By most estimates, MS brings in upwards of a billion a month. If a string of decisions violates the law but keeps this earnings pace up, then the risk of a hundred million dollar fine every few years is likely worth the earnings it maintains. It reminds me a bit of football. Its not something publicly acknowledged, but most college programs try and coach players to selectively follow rules. It might be worth a 15 yard penaly from the spot of the fowl to stop Darren Sproles from making a touchdown return. Who this really hurts is the players, when they violate the "halo" that prevents a player from instantly getting creamed upon reciving the kick. In the same way, cutting your adversaries off early is typically dangerous to your advarsaries, but can bring in profit. While you might be okay with playing football against Microsoft's team, nobody wants to pay for your salary and insurance.
*Ballots in multiple languages can be done easily *Ballots that if cast must be voided (marking more candidates than allowed) can be inspected and brought to the voters attention via computer *Ballots for the visually impaired can be computed and presented effortlessly
Of course, the biggest and most mouthwatering sales pitch for people who run elections and other votes: * Never count by hand again!
Now you see why they're pissed about this whole "paper trail" fiasco. The gravity of the situation is that anonymity and accountability are two forces in a great struggle with eachother. Anyone who can solve this problem stands to earn a vast fortune. This is why we see so many pretenders to the throne, discussing how secure and infalliable their systems are.
The Department of Defense has rigorous testing and inspection requirements for software they use. I don't see why we shouldn't apply the same philosophy to another aspect of protecting democracy, the voting machines.
My mistake, I was thinking more of the CSAB. They're more standard in accrediting a CS cirriculum, though ABET is starting to accredit Software Engineering now.
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Babbage had plenty of patrons in his day. If you read more about his life, you'll find he spent 12 years building the Difference engine, before scrapping it. In his mind it was too specific to the problem at hand, calculating tables for polynomials for the Royal Astronomical Society.
Just as NIST does, the RAS had high hopes for the project that ultimately went overbudget and never completed (until recently, on a whim). Ultimately, I think QC will suffer a similar fate, as its designers slowly realize how they might be able to build a general QC framework.
My guess is its a set of data like a public key and a region to encrypt and compare the results to. Essentially its a way of doing an extra cool CRC on the binary. This technique was used exensively (and repeatedly) in Spyro 4. The idea was that the pirates didn't do much testing on their own releases, and failed to catch most of the checks built into the later game levels. This lead to multiple patches being released by the pirates over the course of a few months, by which time many would be warezers had given up and bought the game. Of course, its difficult to scientifically measure the effectiveness of any particular technique on the market, especially something as subtle as antipiracy measures.
Back before Counter-Strike was on Steam, when a new release came out, eight billion servers provided mirrors of the content, but were difficult to find. Since apparently HL2 will also come with CS:Source, the demand will be gargantuan. They're probably trying to alleviate that by distributing parts of the game like level data, models and textures (which are the bulk of the disk space) across a span of time. They probably aren't including the binary yet, as its only like 2 megabytes and is prone to last minute bug fixes.
Thats not the only possible reason, though. They also have to consider their brick-and-mortar counterparts, who you don't want to feel screwed in some fashion. They also might be using the download requests as a gauge of popularity, or as a method of advertising, and an incentive to buy.
I almost never find any cheaters while playing DoD. It might be a case of a less popular game catching fewer rodents, but I like to think the challenge-response mechanism helps a lot. Eventually I think people will figure out a way to circumvent such attacks, as you appear to have noticed. If Valve is worth their salt, they'll have to move to limit the information sent to players, giving them only what they should be able to observe and nothing more. Sending only the character positions you can directly observe would be one method, which would destroy wallhacks, but leaves aimbots unscathed. I think the only good way to counter aimbots longterm is to offload rendering to a server, but that's borderline insane. Both of these suggestions mean an increase in lag, but that's what we get for using a system where failures to transmit mean waiting for random milliseconds. If you've got a better way to stop cheating, I'd love to hear and patent it.
It also puts Sierra in the not so enviable position of selling a product directly to the customers while also selling it to retail. Retail isn't happy when they get undercut by the guy giving it to them. Especially places like walmart. Of course, they're also building a way to eventually circumvent the retailers AND the publishers, which Sierra isn't happy about, as you noted.
Of course, not every game can be sold via steam like scenarios. The FPS market comes with a lot of assumptions about the demographic. Dominately technical, online (broadband)and expensive computers. Take out any of those and steam just doesn't make sense. If Valve wants to branch out to a broader demographic by making games in the vein of Popcap, you really need something tied much closer to the browser than a standalone app just for shopping. Or if they want to sell something like Deer Hunter to people that don't live on the internet or read PC Gamer magazines, then a nice orange box at walmart is still your best bet.
I've seen a lot of USB snoop suggestions, which are a fine solution. But if you don't find that acceptable, I'd suggest looking into a Controller Area Network(CAN) module instead. You can find PC adaptors for this very cheaply, sometimes as little as 20 dollars. It's specifically designed for systems where you know exactly the kind of communications that will go on, and who's more important than who. It's used in a lot of automotive situations, though there's a growing group that doesn't think it's safe enough.
Disreguarding your personal thesis on Iraq, how did it come to be that the USA is a major supporter of Israel, and yet our presidents come to the negotiations table and impartially coach negotiations along between Palestine and Israel? Why don't we just make it the 51st state?
I realize that some/many of the neighboring countries don't appreciate the forceful introduction of yet another faction into their already narrowly divided region. Realistically, we'll never leave Israel, much in the same way we're not going to leave Saudi Arabia or Iraq. But I still hope for the day where Israel can be free to make its own mistakes, without our need for specific intervention.
If you really want to get a cross section of programming expertise, why not go with a PowerPC board? They're a popular embedded cpu, and they scale upwards quite well-- the cube uses something similar, and the next iteration of Nintendo and Microsoft intend to go that route as well. In terms of employable skills, it certainly beats the x86 and SPARC ASM I was taught in class.
Its quite funny to read the technical prospectus on this thing. " 4-Deep instruction pipeline (Fetch, Decode, Execute, Write)". Wow. " Multiple interrupt sources." What technical marvel.
As far as I can tell, the link is actually a crude form of satire. At least, that's what I think when I hear the promotion of putting terminal handling code in the kernel.
I can't imagine that many reporters earn enough to purchase your standard 100 share bundle of stock out of the blue. That may be part of the problem. I know I don't have that kinda money, but I'm not invested in ANYTHING right now. So I didn't go through the screening process.
Another possible scenario is that memebers of the press have undue influence over the market and may not be welcome in an IPO. CNBC has moved to a disclosure scenario, and there's been rumors of completly divorcing their reporters from market ownership. Fortunately for them, CNBC is a fairly strong company that can assist in manipulation charges. NPR probably isn't.
Well, partially, the investment bankers don't like the deal. Normally they get a 7 percent commission, but Google managed to get both a reduced rate AND a nontraditional market. Personally, I think that investment bankers NEED to switch if they want to avoid problems with the SEC, and Google should be entitled to a discount for putting up with the risk of a first time scenario.
From the banker's perspective, I think they would have made the same amount of money at the traditional method and rate as they would the dutch auction. Price it at 20 dollars, watch the price jump just long enough for them flip their holdings, and rake in a 7 percent commission on revenue. OR, price it four times as much for a third of the commission, and take most of the first day jump out of the market and into your client's pockets.
I wonder how many writes a specific address in a physical harddisk recieves in the lifetime of the disk. Certainly it wouldn't be a good idea for something like swap space. But for normal disk usage, I'd imagine very few hdds see that kind of write activity outside of swap and databases. But even in that kind of situation, professionals use RAID as a protection against such failures.
You're right. I know tons of people who played a game once, and totally grasp the mechanics of destroying the mother brain in Metroid within five seconds. How could I have missed such an obvious cue? Clearly "game literacy" meant "I play Spades on Yahoo!" rather than "I spent hours beating Metroid when I was a kid".
The fact of the matter is that the games are based on a wide plethora of materials. Also I resent the title "hardcore." It comes with this pornographic stigma and all. It's in comparable terms to the title "user"--the only other people (besides computer programmers) that call their clients users are drug dealers!
That this game that depends on being well versed in video game concepts, was universally panned by my friends. They all had a try at it at EB, and they all thought it looked and was stupid and pointless. Really, about the only bright side to the game was the intro to the motorscooter levels. Monkies trump any argument I could ever make.
Fine. Maybe the Solar Car challenge has outlived its purpose. People know you can dork around in solar cars, but its not very practical. Maybe proponents of alternative fuels should sponsor a pratical solar car race. The requirements should be similar in nature to the GT, which if I recall, call for things like a passenger seat and a trunk space.
I'm gonna have to side with the cop who put nobody at fault, and was leaning towards the SUV for parking in the middle of a four lane road.
There's a longstanding fact, that when two cars collide the heavier one wins. I don't think there's anything heavier out there than the Hummer, weighing five tons and all. When a good but not so bright samaritan parked his Suburban in the middle of the road to help out an accident just ahead, he earned himself another accident for his troubles. My brother wrongly assumed he was turning left rather than stopped, and totaled his lightweight CRX against the rear/underneath it. The Suburban suffered minor bumper damage. The CRX looked like an accordian when it was over.
I don't personally think there's a need to ban them from the roads, although apparently others do. How about a stricter liscence to drive such vehicles? In neither case (the CRX nor the solar car) was the heavy vehicle at fault.
In all seriousness, this should be a wakeup call to solar car competitions. My friend was involved in solar car last year and crashed into a wall when the tire blew out. He was fine, but in general safety is a minimal concern, and the same vehicles that race on specially made tracks all too often compete in highway driving contests. You won't find solar car teams going through the design looking for impact weaknesses or designing in crunch points. This is critically important as your solar cars are increasingly relying on various chemical batteries that are none too friendly. Litium ion is pretty popular, but litium gas can kill you pretty quickly if you're exposed.
It is a tragedy, but I can only hope man may learn from his mistakes. Or at least let tragedy create an open forum for the disscusion of relevant concerns.
Just looking at the tables for sega, they seem to be doing okay, especially in what's widely held as a downturn. They doubled earnings from a year ago, and their predictions call for 8 billion, somewhere between 4 and 8 times more than they're making now. Of course, predictions tend to be optimistic, but even if its only 4 billion, they've more than doubled earnings.
I'd be more worried about Sammy, who if I'm reading this chart correctly, earned 3 billion yen on 27 billion billion yen!
Debian women? Does that mean they don't shave? All chauvanistic kidding aside, I find it a bit strange that a recruiting tool has grown around Amaya, the only noted Debian Developer. Its akin to the problem in acadamia: the establishment is lacking in perspective to attract new people, and you can't just bring in new people to promote the establishement to new people-- they lack perspective of the establishment!
I don't think its nessecarily that CS is a guys thing, but that Computer Games are a guy's thing. You can argue that the biggest selling games boast a 50-50 or higher (towards female) gender ratio, but the facts are that the majority of sales are for men, the majority of titles are aimed at 14-21 year old boys, and the media is so heavily slanted towards men that I would imagine it being rather offputting.
The reason I say this is because you'd be surprised how many guys pick CS because they figure its their ticket into game development. Most realize that its going to be far harder than they ever imagined, and wander off. But even among those who remain, the title 'Game Developer' isn't something most grads would resent. Especially compared to 'Help Desk Assistant'.
I also listened to that station by happenchance. I don't regularly listen to the radio at home or at work, but my car has no cd player, giving me the opportunity to enjoy the recent growth in alternative/rock stations, after many died the year I graduated from high school.
In part, I believe that its a form of censorship, but there's a larger fiasco going on here. Consumers in areas large enough to have retail music shops like Best Buy or Circuit city, ie places that put out ads paid for by the Record Labels under certain conditions, have been paying too much for their music. I'm not pleased with the settlement going half cash and half donated CDs. The argument for accept these terms is that it would benefit the poor who can't as easily partake in the settlement or the altered behavior. But dividing the provided music between acceptable and unnacceptable only serves to widen the gap between those who appreciate unnacceptable music and those who don't. You don't make friends by telling people their beliefs are unfounded and dangerous to society.
And of course, the record companies are happy to let the issue fly in the face of prosceutors, rather than their own cuplability in providing from excess stock or taking their own share of the hoopla around giving out violent media to the public libraries. The best irony is that if the AG hadn't chosen to filter the media provided, he'd likely come under fire with conservative local media for not doing it, complete with fingers point around about the urban blight of Kansas City, KS.
The big problem of course, is that the "industrialization" has already happened, and software in america looks disturbingly like steel factories of the previous generation: losing to overseas competition.
In part, it's due to protective moves of foreign companies trying to establish their own software industry. But American software rarely enjoys the opportunity to compete with other American software companies. I was dissapointed with the Department of Justice's missing teeth once a conviction was upheld against MS. It might seem that punishing MS might be a harsh detriment to the American economy, but this monopolization reduces incentive to compete, not just overseas, but in America too. No incentive to compete translates into a direct lack of tech jobs, especially in costlier places like the United States of America. By most every account Microsoft's behavior has not changed.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has only learned that violating the law is a winning investment. By most estimates, MS brings in upwards of a billion a month. If a string of decisions violates the law but keeps this earnings pace up, then the risk of a hundred million dollar fine every few years is likely worth the earnings it maintains. It reminds me a bit of football. Its not something publicly acknowledged, but most college programs try and coach players to selectively follow rules. It might be worth a 15 yard penaly from the spot of the fowl to stop Darren Sproles from making a touchdown return. Who this really hurts is the players, when they violate the "halo" that prevents a player from instantly getting creamed upon reciving the kick. In the same way, cutting your adversaries off early is typically dangerous to your advarsaries, but can bring in profit. While you might be okay with playing football against Microsoft's team, nobody wants to pay for your salary and insurance.
Can I trust both? Or is trust some sort of rare commodity that I should dispense with sparingly?
Electronic voting does offer certain advantages:
*Ballots in multiple languages can be done easily
*Ballots that if cast must be voided (marking more candidates than allowed) can be inspected and brought to the voters attention via computer
*Ballots for the visually impaired can be computed and presented effortlessly
Of course, the biggest and most mouthwatering sales pitch for people who run elections and other votes:
* Never count by hand again!
Now you see why they're pissed about this whole "paper trail" fiasco. The gravity of the situation is that anonymity and accountability are two forces in a great struggle with eachother. Anyone who can solve this problem stands to earn a vast fortune. This is why we see so many pretenders to the throne, discussing how secure and infalliable their systems are.
The Department of Defense has rigorous testing and inspection requirements for software they use. I don't see why we shouldn't apply the same philosophy to another aspect of protecting democracy, the voting machines.
My mistake, I was thinking more of the CSAB. They're more standard in accrediting a CS cirriculum, though ABET is starting to accredit Software Engineering now.