A quote that I heard once sums up how most people (including myself) react to things:
"If all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail."
Well, Jon has his hammer (technology), and he's whacking the biggest, most visible, most recent problem (the US election) with it. While it's probably really hard for those of us who are tech-savvy, somehow we have to step back and ask, "Is that REALLY the way to solve it?"
I'll tell ya this - my grandmother probably wouldn't be all that pleased if she had to use a computer, mouse, and keyboard to vote instead of pencil and paper (as we do it here in Ontario). Maybe the solution is as simple as standarizing the federal ballot (with allowances for different numbers of candidates). If you want computer counting, maybe use markers or black bingo dabbers instead of pencil. Heck, use custom ink in the dabbers that are both visually AND electronically opaque.
Point is that not every solution SHOULD be solved with technology. Sure, at times like this it seems like anything new is a better idea, but how often has such a basic system failed before? It's worked perfectly well for the past century.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
It's from a book entitled "How To Deal With The Idiots In Your Life". It's a collection of the author's comic strips - very off-the-wall, this-ain't-no-Peanuts comic strip.
Other excerpts:
"Nuff me!"
"Why do I always have to sleep in the green spot?"
"Bowling is on!" "We should tape it."
"Trying to adjust them will only make her louder."
"Anyway, she was a bitch."
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
The current answer to most of Jon's questions is a simple NO. Why? Because the market says so.
The downfall of a market economy is that the Almighty Buck has the last word 99% of the time. The other 1% is when people realize that it may be cheaper, but not more environmentally friendly, or that they just LIKE doing such-and-such, or that other thing isn't available in your neck of the woods.
Mr. Buck is an ugly master, and doesn't really care that there are monsters running around outside... they're cheaper than all the alternatives.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Re:The problem is money
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
If you want to get this done you'll have to have a billion dollars come from a federal level to buy the stuff.
Didn't I hear that this election has cost the USA over $4 BILLION?? How much do you think Gore and Bush and associates have blown on cheesy TV ads and smear tactics? Getting money should NOT be a problem.
First, change the campaign financing laws. For every dollar spent for 2004, some portion LEGALLY has to go directly towards updating the voting system. That'll net quite a few million right there. Then you get to realize that once you have voting HARDWARE, you don't need to print ballots - some savings there. You don't need hundreds of people counting votes by hand (Hi, FLA!) either.
Over the long run, assuming that the hardware is designed well (ie., has a good long life) it should save money in the long run.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
I think you're right on.. it needs to become electronic. As a bystander up here in Canada, it boggles the mind how many different methods the various counties and states use to tally votes. Amazing.
However, I think some caution should be shown. I would consider it a Bad Idea (TM) to suddenly boot up a few hundred thousand PC clones with Win ME and eVote v1.1 in 2004 using touchscreens. Why? Duh - why do a lot of slashdotters use *nix? Let's talk instability and insecurity. Not only that, but my Palm III has enough trouble keeping its tiny touchscreen calibrated... I could just imagine people screaming all across the country that they touched the DEMOCRAT button, but the GREEN PARTY button right beside it was registered instead (as an example).
No, we need to go old-school on this. I'm talking a combination of Radio Shack and networking. The voting device itself should be pretty much a non-computer, but instead simply a peripheral of the polling station's server. To vote, you push a button, or stick a contact into a hole - something positive and physical - and that info gets sent back to the server. Heck, add a few:Cue:Cats to read the voter's voter card bar code, to ensure they can't vote twice. Dead simple, cheap, and HACK PROOF.
Otherwise, those currently-14-year-olds will get into the voting booth, blink, smile, and hit CTRL-ALT-DEL.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Suddenly all on-campus Micro$oft employees find that they are blocked from accessing Slashdot, and are presented with the mesage "Access denied until you produce something stable".
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
This would be the ultimate in Geocaching. Instead of having to actually place a container in some God-forsaken corner of the planet, you just scout out a location and get the co-ordinates. Then, when geocachers come a-knocking, their GPS signature "unlocks" the geocache (web site, executable, e-mail, ftp site, whatever).
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
If Starband wants to sell to the famous "early adopters," shouldn't they release enough specs at least to make this a kernel rev or two from Linux support?
Oh, please.
Anyone reading/. realizes that there is a viable *nix market out there. What timothy doesn't seem to want to admit is that said market is a tiny drop in the bucket when compared to all the M$ users out there.
Yes, *nix users are/can be technophiles, and thereby early adopters. Yes, early adopters are necessary to get new technology into the mainstream. But for crying out loud, Nameless Faceless Corp. Inc. isn't going to see that, they're going to see MICROSOFT = 90%++ MARKET SHARE and stop right there.
Yes, *nix support would be nice. But please be realistic. (Note to moderators: flamebait or reality check? Your call, I guess.)
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
You mean there's a readily-available spot to mirror sites, it's free, it retains all ads, and/. is NOT USING IT?!?
To quote a cliche, HELLO??
What on/. is more predictable than the polls sucking? That at 8am every morning when I first load/. up I won't be able to follow at least half the links on the front page stories due to slashdotting. Especially if that link is about new hardware, doubly so if it has pretty pictures.
Is the problem legality? Send the website admin a form letter saying something to the effect of;
"Your site [insert URL here] has been submitted to Slashdot.org in a news item that will be posted. Historically sites mentioned on Slashdot.org have suffered due to overwhelming demand. In the interest of our readers and your continuted web presence, we are taking the liberty of mirroring your site for a period of 36 hours at [insert mirror URL here]. If you have any questions or concerns, just stomp on CmdrTaco's head a few times."
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
As for me, I'm happy with either system. Doesn't matter to me which system of measurements you use, as long as you're
clear and consistent.
So "clear and consistent" means you have 5280 feet in a mile, 4 quarts per gallon, 12 inches per foot, and one stone is about 14 pounds? Clear as Guiness, if you ask me. I'm an engineer, and know the conversions - and they're not exactly straightforward.
Compare your "clear and consistent" Imperial system with 1000 metres per kilometer, 1000 millilitres per litre, 100 centimetres (or 1000 millimetres) per meter, 1000 grams per kilogram... it's all just powers of 10, and dead, dead simple. Need a millionth? Micro-. Need a million? Mega-.
Imperial is only "clear and consistent" if you don't mind a bushell (or is it only 16 pints?) of random, meaningless, individual relationships between all your measurements. Just go ahead and explain why water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212, instead of 0 and 100. I'd *love* to hear it.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Pure silliness, if you ask me. I can pretty much understand going down to 1/8th increments, but for the love of sanity, why would you EVER specify things in 16ths, 32nds, or 64ths?!? It would be a LOT simpler if you just converted to the decimal equivalent. Chances are that when you take the tolerance into account, it'll erase quite a few of your precious significant digits anyways ( 3/16 is.1875, but will most likely show up at.19).
As an engineer, this never fails to irk me.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
would you have prefered the Soviet Union to be your neighbour instead of the US?
Hmm, lessee... on the downside; Communism, collapsing economy, drunken rulers. On the updside; plentiful vodka, well-established space presence, plentiful Free Trade Mail Order brides. Hmmm. Tough call.
With what the Canadian dollar is worth in US$, maybe getting a few billion rubles would be a nice change. [grin]
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
...is the fact that despite being Canadian, living in Canada, reading Canadian new sources, and generally not coming out from under my rock, I am still being inundated with election coverage from the good ol' US of A.
It's understandable... it's the last remaining superpower... our closest geographical neighbour... shares the longest unguarded border in the world... largest trading partner... but holy cow, we've got our own election coming up! And on top of that, where I live we have MUNICIPAL elections coming up too! I am being over electioned, and it's turning into apathy.
If I respectively wasn't informed enough to care, already decided, and not informed enough to care, I'd probably do something stupid like posting all my frustrations on a newsgroup. Whew.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
If you want to show that you don't like any of the available candidates, you really have only one choice if you actually want to make a statement: spoil your ballot.
If you plain don't vote, you'll just be another statistic among the other million slobs who didn't bother to vote. Impact: zero.
If you vote, but spoil your ballot, those ballots get counted and tallied, and you actually register in the process. If millions spoil their ballots, then obviously the candidates are crap, or there's soemthing else wrong with the process.
So get out there and either vote or spoil, but don't stay home pulling your peter hoping to make a difference.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
By giving your children, which are supposed to be the most important thing in your life, to daycare, you are
explicitly opting out of taking parental responsibility.
Sorry, I don't buy this one little bit. If you opt to put your children in daycare, evening care, and keep them with a nanny/babysitter all the time, yes, you as a parent are opting out of raising your child. But this is hardly what is being suggested.
What is being suggested is that children be put into daycare during the work day. This allows both parents to work (having one stay home is not always an option, nor is having family take care of the child) without having to worry about their child. Meanwhile, the child not only is exposed to a new environment, but is exposed to new concepts, socialization, structured learning, and opportunities that they might not otherwise get in their own house (especially socialization with other adults and children their own age). This is important at a young age!
Ideally, a parent would care for a child. But today's work world is hardly perfect, and I see daycare as an excellent solution for parents who both have to work. It should never become a replacement for parenting, but it certainly does have its place.
"There's a party," she said, "We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Slashdot Mirror
- "If all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail."
Well, Jon has his hammer (technology), and he's whacking the biggest, most visible, most recent problem (the US election) with it. While it's probably really hard for those of us who are tech-savvy, somehow we have to step back and ask, "Is that REALLY the way to solve it?"I'll tell ya this - my grandmother probably wouldn't be all that pleased if she had to use a computer, mouse, and keyboard to vote instead of pencil and paper (as we do it here in Ontario). Maybe the solution is as simple as standarizing the federal ballot (with allowances for different numbers of candidates). If you want computer counting, maybe use markers or black bingo dabbers instead of pencil. Heck, use custom ink in the dabbers that are both visually AND electronically opaque.
Point is that not every solution SHOULD be solved with technology. Sure, at times like this it seems like anything new is a better idea, but how often has such a basic system failed before? It's worked perfectly well for the past century.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Other excerpts:
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
The downfall of a market economy is that the Almighty Buck has the last word 99% of the time. The other 1% is when people realize that it may be cheaper, but not more environmentally friendly, or that they just LIKE doing such-and-such, or that other thing isn't available in your neck of the woods.
Mr. Buck is an ugly master, and doesn't really care that there are monsters running around outside... they're cheaper than all the alternatives.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Didn't I hear that this election has cost the USA over $4 BILLION?? How much do you think Gore and Bush and associates have blown on cheesy TV ads and smear tactics? Getting money should NOT be a problem.
First, change the campaign financing laws. For every dollar spent for 2004, some portion LEGALLY has to go directly towards updating the voting system. That'll net quite a few million right there. Then you get to realize that once you have voting HARDWARE, you don't need to print ballots - some savings there. You don't need hundreds of people counting votes by hand (Hi, FLA!) either.
Over the long run, assuming that the hardware is designed well (ie., has a good long life) it should save money in the long run.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
However, I think some caution should be shown. I would consider it a Bad Idea (TM) to suddenly boot up a few hundred thousand PC clones with Win ME and eVote v1.1 in 2004 using touchscreens. Why? Duh - why do a lot of slashdotters use *nix? Let's talk instability and insecurity. Not only that, but my Palm III has enough trouble keeping its tiny touchscreen calibrated... I could just imagine people screaming all across the country that they touched the DEMOCRAT button, but the GREEN PARTY button right beside it was registered instead (as an example).
No, we need to go old-school on this. I'm talking a combination of Radio Shack and networking. The voting device itself should be pretty much a non-computer, but instead simply a peripheral of the polling station's server. To vote, you push a button, or stick a contact into a hole - something positive and physical - and that info gets sent back to the server. Heck, add a few :Cue:Cats to read the voter's voter card bar code, to ensure they can't vote twice. Dead simple, cheap, and HACK PROOF.
Otherwise, those currently-14-year-olds will get into the voting booth, blink, smile, and hit CTRL-ALT-DEL.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Oh, please.
Anyone reading /. realizes that there is a viable *nix market out there. What timothy doesn't seem to want to admit is that said market is a tiny drop in the bucket when compared to all the M$ users out there.
Yes, *nix users are/can be technophiles, and thereby early adopters. Yes, early adopters are necessary to get new technology into the mainstream. But for crying out loud, Nameless Faceless Corp. Inc. isn't going to see that, they're going to see MICROSOFT = 90%++ MARKET SHARE and stop right there.
Yes, *nix support would be nice. But please be realistic. (Note to moderators: flamebait or reality check? Your call, I guess.)
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
For what it's worth, I'm an hour outside of Toronto down the 401, "Golden Triangle" area. (Not to be confused with the "Golden Horseshoe".)
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
To quote a cliche, HELLO??
What on /. is more predictable than the polls sucking? That at 8am every morning when I first load /. up I won't be able to follow at least half the links on the front page stories due to slashdotting. Especially if that link is about new hardware, doubly so if it has pretty pictures.
Is the problem legality? Send the website admin a form letter saying something to the effect of;
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
So "clear and consistent" means you have 5280 feet in a mile, 4 quarts per gallon, 12 inches per foot, and one stone is about 14 pounds? Clear as Guiness, if you ask me. I'm an engineer, and know the conversions - and they're not exactly straightforward.
Compare your "clear and consistent" Imperial system with 1000 metres per kilometer, 1000 millilitres per litre, 100 centimetres (or 1000 millimetres) per meter, 1000 grams per kilogram... it's all just powers of 10, and dead, dead simple. Need a millionth? Micro-. Need a million? Mega-.
Imperial is only "clear and consistent" if you don't mind a bushell (or is it only 16 pints?) of random, meaningless, individual relationships between all your measurements. Just go ahead and explain why water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212, instead of 0 and 100. I'd *love* to hear it.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Pure silliness, if you ask me. I can pretty much understand going down to 1/8th increments, but for the love of sanity, why would you EVER specify things in 16ths, 32nds, or 64ths?!? It would be a LOT simpler if you just converted to the decimal equivalent. Chances are that when you take the tolerance into account, it'll erase quite a few of your precious significant digits anyways ( 3/16 is .1875, but will most likely show up at .19).
As an engineer, this never fails to irk me.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Hmm, lessee... on the downside; Communism, collapsing economy, drunken rulers. On the updside; plentiful vodka, well-established space presence, plentiful Free Trade Mail Order brides. Hmmm. Tough call.
With what the Canadian dollar is worth in US$, maybe getting a few billion rubles would be a nice change. [grin]
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
If you had the brain the size of a walnut, and needed an extra brain in your ass just to get by, you wouldn't be all that proud either, would you??
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
It's understandable... it's the last remaining superpower... our closest geographical neighbour... shares the longest unguarded border in the world... largest trading partner... but holy cow, we've got our own election coming up! And on top of that, where I live we have MUNICIPAL elections coming up too! I am being over electioned, and it's turning into apathy.
If I respectively wasn't informed enough to care, already decided, and not informed enough to care, I'd probably do something stupid like posting all my frustrations on a newsgroup. Whew.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
If you plain don't vote, you'll just be another statistic among the other million slobs who didn't bother to vote. Impact: zero.
If you vote, but spoil your ballot, those ballots get counted and tallied, and you actually register in the process. If millions spoil their ballots, then obviously the candidates are crap, or there's soemthing else wrong with the process.
So get out there and either vote or spoil, but don't stay home pulling your peter hoping to make a difference.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Sorry, I don't buy this one little bit. If you opt to put your children in daycare, evening care, and keep them with a nanny/babysitter all the time, yes, you as a parent are opting out of raising your child. But this is hardly what is being suggested.
What is being suggested is that children be put into daycare during the work day. This allows both parents to work (having one stay home is not always an option, nor is having family take care of the child) without having to worry about their child. Meanwhile, the child not only is exposed to a new environment, but is exposed to new concepts, socialization, structured learning, and opportunities that they might not otherwise get in their own house (especially socialization with other adults and children their own age). This is important at a young age!
Ideally, a parent would care for a child. But today's work world is hardly perfect, and I see daycare as an excellent solution for parents who both have to work. It should never become a replacement for parenting, but it certainly does have its place.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."