Some simple calculations will show you that 1000 mpg (for g as in gallon of gasoline) is physically impossible.
(1) Energy content of gasoline --- 36.6 kWh/US gallon. Let's assume that your engine works at the absolute thermodynamic limit (40%) for a combustion engine so you get 16 KWH of work out of it. (2) The power to move your vehicle through air is P = (1/2)(density)(projected area)(drag coeff)(velocity^3) (4) At sea level, 25C, 60 MPH, A = (1 m)^2, CD =.1, you have to expend P = 1.25 KW to continue moving. (5) In one hour, therefore, you have consumed 1.25 KWH ~ (1/12) gal. You have also moved 60 miles, giving you 60*12= 720 mpg.
So, even under the most generous conditions, you cannot possibly do better that 700 mpg. Of course, we have neglected rolling friction of the tires and assumed that your regenerative braking system is so good that you expend no net energy starting and stopping. 720 mpg is just the energy required to move the air out of your way as you cruise to work.
At first, I was going to mod you OT and move on, but I felt like there was something important to be said here -- efficiency is not like performance. In performance, one can always throw more energy at the problem (he's using a jet engine FFS, new sports cars are always breaking HP limits) but when going for efficiency, you are going to see diminishing returns. 100 mpg is doable, 200 mpg is doable with severe sacrifices (mainly in the comfort/cargo dept). Past that, I feel like the laws of physics are not going to be particularly kind.
I still cannot understand why major corporations run Windows of any version in enterprise server farms. They've had so many warning signs, so many high security breaches, so many alarms, and they're still very "ho-hum" about it.
For any decent admin, port 135 will be closed on the local software firewall and probably blocked at the switches. Even Windows admins don't use SMB.
On the other hand, when carriers have a stronger role in designing a phone - this comes up particularly for CDMA phones - then the bluetooth API's are dropped or postponed.
My HTC PPC6800 (Titan, Mogul) was designed for Sprint and VZ (CDMA/EVDO) and it has a perfectly functional BT implementation. External applications (e.g. pdanet) can even provide bluetooth services (DUN).
But I'm sure you're right. It's a conspiracy by TMobile to not offer... what is it you want again that you aren't getting?
(1) A2DP and AVRCP (2) Bluetooth tethering (can be implemented as a DUN)
These are two things that work fairly well on my WinMo 6.1 (HTC6800) and should be a piece of cake. I would switch to the G1 for those things (and if TMobile had a 3G network comparable to the EVDO revA that I'm on now -- they don't).
(1) Non citizens on US soil get rights, just fewer rights than citizens. Depending on how they entered the country, they can also be deported and permanently excluded from reentry.
(2) Citizens cannot be stripped of your US citizenship involuntarily. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trop_v._Dulles. So your rights are, in fact, unalienable just not in the lofty sense of being spooky.
Feingold got BiCRA passed but one of the main planks didn't make it past the Supreme Court. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Commission_v._Wisconsin_Right_to_Life,_Inc. that created a huge loophole through the "TV ads" part of the law. Essentially, unless the ad cannot be interpreted in any other way as supporting/opposing a candidate, the FEC cannot constitutionally prevent individuals from airing it.
I give Feingold a lot of credit for making it pass, but ultimately, it ends up in the dustbin.
If they take a laptop to search it for 24 hours they should first detail their "reasonable suspicion" on a form to which the person's whose laptop is being taken receives a copy to chat with their lawyer about.
What exactly are you going to sue them for? Seizure for inspection at the border is legal (how else would the USDA inspect imported food?) and so you can S1983 them for violation of a Constitutional right.
I don't particularly object to your suggestion, I just don't see that it would be of any use.
Probable cause required after 24 hours? No. Probable cause must be required before search.
Your views on this political question* are admirable (and I would even agree but the devil's in the details of implementation) but they are also at variance with most of the electorate. For myself, I have (grudgingly) accepted that such political preferences are legitimate even when they conflict with my personal preferences. I have no qualms saying that people are making a big mistake giving up freedom for liberty but, from a point of view of epistemic humility, I also have to concede that they have every right to make the decision.
The best thing we can do is attempt to convince people and that starts first and foremost with acknowledging the legitimacy of their position (while, of course, reserving the right to respectfully disagree).
* Since for 250 years, the Constitution has permitted warrantless, suspicionless searches of anything crossing an international border, it is considered a settled legal question./.ers can complain that the true meaning of the fourth amendment is something different (I'm sure many will) but the law remains.
An ARM processor at 400 Mhz is not even close to a real x86 processor at 400Mhz. First of all, you'd have to port all the kernel junk from x86 to ARM (hint: not fun) but more importantly, the performance just isn't there. ARM is designed for power-thriftiness, not performance.
I have a 400Mhz ARM in my phone (HTC PPC6800) and the thing has serious trouble rendering complex HTML (Opera Mobile 9.5, part of the slowdown might be scaling images down to 320x240 though) -- something that my old PC doesn't even blink at.
Imho it's the worst kind of IM client there is, except it works.
/begin{flamebait} And this is precisely what's annoying with people that put principle ahead of practicality. Software is instructions for a computer to do a useful task, not a platform for grand theoretical bullshit. It exists precisely for the purpose of working. If it doesn't work for the intended purpose (e.g. DRM-encumbered nonsense), it's not useful software. If it does work, I give less than a shit about the other attributes./end{flamebait}
Take a look at the average Linux distribution. Count the total amount of source code from Linux. Now count the total contribution from the GNU project.
WARNING, EXTENDED (hopefully thoughtful) CAR ANALOGY FOLLOWS
Volume of source code is not a good measure of relative importance any more than a fuel tank is the most important part of a car because it's the heaviest. Nor is ease of replacement probative -- I can replace the timing belt on my car in 20 minutes (faster than changing oil), yet I would still it as a critical component. Nor is the hypothetical functionality with the component removed a good measure -- remove the battery and my car won't go anywhere at all, yet it is still a peripheral part.
The only way (AFAICT) to analyze the relative positions of components of a complex system is by the degree to which they interact with other parts -- the degree of 'connectedness' they are in the network. The timing belt is significant because it interfaces the crankshaft (output power) with the valves and fuel injection system (input power). It's right at the center of things, talking with all the major players. The battery, on the other hand, is isolated from the system save for a single connection, one that provides only bulk voltage. It does not talk to anyone (unless it's dying:-), nor does it receive any information. In other words, it's just not an interesting.
Turning to GNU/Linux, it's clear that they are both equally important on network-theoretic terms. The kernel sits right smack at the center of everything, talking and listening to everyone and sticking its thumb in every pie. glibc, BASH, X, etc . . are likewise important, mediating between the user and the kernel, talking to the applications, linking libraries and likewise, have their thumbs in all the pies. If you drew a graph (in the mathematical sense) of the GNU/Linux system together, the two would very heavily connected at the center while everything else went around them.
IMHO, even a 10% chance* of these sort of breach justifies the dickish practice of immediately cutting off all access to laid-off/fired employees and having security walk them out. For the 90% that don't deserve to be treated that way (and will be justifiably bitter), it's a shitty thing to do. That 10%, however, represents such a huge security risk that I don't really see a better option.
* I make no statement whatsoever on what the actual fraction of admins would do such a thing. I don't think TFA is particularly credible, considering the company. *
Let's say, I, as a developer write some software and give it to you, but just the binary. Let's say I let that you use, copy, and modify that software as you wish. In other words, you have natural freedoms to do as you please. Now RMS comes along as says "That's not freedom! you didn't give him the source!"
What I contend RMS should have said is "That's not freedom, the way I see it" or, "I think your definition of freedom is too narrow" or something that recognizes the particular subjectivity of his definition. The term "Free Software" is just too general a phrase to be subject to arbitrary redefinition.
You are correct, of course, that in the context of the FSF or GPL, "Free software" acquires a different meaning, but that's only within that context. Assuming that every time someone on the internet talks about "free software" (and doesn't explicitly link it to the particular FSF conception of freedom) they intend to invoke that context is presumptuous (although the speaker should probably be more clear).
Free software, per its definition, gives the recipient four freedoms:
I wasn't aware that the FSF had the right to redefine phrases in natural English. They certainly have a definition of free software but I see no reason that the GP needs to adopt that definition as his own. RMS is not the ultimate authority on the meaning of words in the English language.
As a general supporter of the FSF's goals (in a practicality-oriented sort of way), I have always been philosophically disturbed by their claim to attach a technical definition to an ordinary phrase. If they wanted to introduce a novel concept, the four freedoms, they should do so in an intellectually honest way that does not lay claim to ordinary adjectives. The easiest way would be to invent a word -- "freefour" or "fourfree" (I'm not a marketing droid, that's the best I can come up with).
\end{minortechnicalrant}
PS. To the GGP that complained about MS nicking SMB and "extracting licensing fees", I've never had a problem inter-operating Windows File Sharing with various Linuxes. Just sayin.
I think that, except in extreme cases, they should worry about upgrading all of us first rather than roll out new services.
It's amazing that in a free country, one free citizen would demand that another citizen perform a service for him. I cannot imagine the sense of entitlement that leads you think that you are justified in making such demands.
Why should localities get to be the subset of people that decides? Maybe it should be the county or some other arbitrary division. Maybe my neighborhood should get a veto on it because our standards are different from those jerks across town. Maybe my block has different standards than the next block over. Maybe those evil telcos should customize their equipment suit the particular architecture of each house.
I'm not saying that you *cannot* impose these requirements. I'm saying that you have to understand there are important trade-offs here. As you make the requirements more stringent (and less uniform), you raise the price of implementation and thus slow down the rollout of new services (it suffices to say that I think that's a terrible result). There's no law that says they have to upgrade your copper/coax and, if they don't see a profit, they won't do it. That's how it is were my parents live -- they will have to live with copper and coax indefinitely while I have a fiber optic connection right to my house.
The telco is *not* going to say "NO FIOS FOR YOU" if the community demanded they bury these turds. They will just jack the price up by $0.01 and amortize the cost over 20 years.
You have no idea how much more expensive it is to bury all that equipment and then to maintain the buried equipment. Think factors, not percent. If the density in the target area is low, the telco would just as well leave the old copper and coax in place. That's what they are doing where my parents live -- low density, buried lines, no new services. Not even uVerse. Just live with your pretty copper and coax.
The cheaper it is to install new services, the faster and more widely deployed those services will be. That's just common sense folks!
Lamenting the sad state of broadband in the US (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/13/1648211) is a common theme here, so you'd think we'd be gung-ho for any utility to start installing new gear. Instead, we get complaints that the new gear is ugly and that telcos don't want to negotiate a different standard with every little town. I hope we can at least agree that it's logical for the telcos to want one standard per state, at least for the sanity of their installer techs. I'm not objecting to making that standard rigorous, just so long as there's only one of them.
Personal experience, our town (Waltham, MA) was among the first to get FIOS strung up everywhere. It sits on the utility poles, which now carry power, copper, coaxial and fiber. It's not the prettiest set up in the world, but it's really not that bad. I used to live in a suburb that buried all our cables, which was considerably prettier. It also means that they aren't going to get fiber (installation costs aren't justified) and when there was an outage, it took weeks to get it resolved. I much prefer the uglier solution.
Being a poll worker is not, nor has it ever been, an integral part of the democratic process. You are guaranteed a right to vote, a right to have that vote faithfully counted (every Diebold machine ought to be incinerated at 4000F) and the right not to have your vote diluted by fraudulent votes. No one in their right mind would assert that every citizen has the right to monitor the polls as an official poll worker.
When the crisis abates, I expect the botnets will be returned to their regularly scheduled duties. Quite a versatile tool those botnets -- pimping V!agr4, collapsing government sites, enhancing the male doodad, distributing pr0n, bullying your neighbors (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm). For the cost of one M1A1 tank tread, Putin bought himself a whole lot of firepower.
The court issued a 'temporary restraining order', which is legal-jargon for "don't do anything until we can get a decent hearing". It does not mean that the court has accepted the MBTA's position or even jurisdiction over the case. It is merely a tool* to ensure that neither party can unilaterally change the status-quo just because the courts do not operate 24/7 and are sort of slow (making sure everyone has a chance to speak generally doesn't allow for fast decision making). Rarely does a TRO last more than a week until a preliminary hearing can be held.
IMO, therefore, even if the MBTA has no case whatsoever (almost certainly true) they are entitled to a TRO for a few days until the court can read (and almost certainly deny) their application for a permanent injunction. I don't see any major damage from having a presentation delayed for all of 72 hours either (note, if we were talking permanent injunction, it would be totally bogus -- that's a different matter entirely).
* Yes, I'm aware the information was already published on the internet and that it cannot effectively be "recalled". That is not the point -- the MBTA, as any other litigant, has the right to have a court hear their case -- even if they really don't have one.
Slashdot Mirror
Some simple calculations will show you that 1000 mpg (for g as in gallon of gasoline) is physically impossible.
(1) Energy content of gasoline --- 36.6 kWh/US gallon. Let's assume that your engine works at the absolute thermodynamic limit (40%) for a combustion engine so you get 16 KWH of work out of it. .1, you have to expend P = 1.25 KW to continue moving.
(2) The power to move your vehicle through air is P = (1/2)(density)(projected area)(drag coeff)(velocity^3)
(4) At sea level, 25C, 60 MPH, A = (1 m)^2, CD =
(5) In one hour, therefore, you have consumed 1.25 KWH ~ (1/12) gal. You have also moved 60 miles, giving you 60*12= 720 mpg.
So, even under the most generous conditions, you cannot possibly do better that 700 mpg. Of course, we have neglected rolling friction of the tires and assumed that your regenerative braking system is so good that you expend no net energy starting and stopping. 720 mpg is just the energy required to move the air out of your way as you cruise to work.
At first, I was going to mod you OT and move on, but I felt like there was something important to be said here -- efficiency is not like performance. In performance, one can always throw more energy at the problem (he's using a jet engine FFS, new sports cars are always breaking HP limits) but when going for efficiency, you are going to see diminishing returns. 100 mpg is doable, 200 mpg is doable with severe sacrifices (mainly in the comfort/cargo dept). Past that, I feel like the laws of physics are not going to be particularly kind.
I still cannot understand why major corporations run Windows of any version in enterprise server farms. They've had so many warning signs, so many high security breaches, so many alarms, and they're still very "ho-hum" about it.
For any decent admin, port 135 will be closed on the local software firewall and probably blocked at the switches. Even Windows admins don't use SMB.
On the other hand, when carriers have a stronger role in designing a phone - this comes up particularly for CDMA phones - then the bluetooth API's are dropped or postponed.
My HTC PPC6800 (Titan, Mogul) was designed for Sprint and VZ (CDMA/EVDO) and it has a perfectly functional BT implementation. External applications (e.g. pdanet) can even provide bluetooth services (DUN).
But I'm sure you're right. It's a conspiracy by TMobile to not offer... what is it you want again that you aren't getting?
(1) A2DP and AVRCP
(2) Bluetooth tethering (can be implemented as a DUN)
These are two things that work fairly well on my WinMo 6.1 (HTC6800) and should be a piece of cake. I would switch to the G1 for those things (and if TMobile had a 3G network comparable to the EVDO revA that I'm on now -- they don't).
(1) Non citizens on US soil get rights, just fewer rights than citizens. Depending on how they entered the country, they can also be deported and permanently excluded from reentry.
(2) Citizens cannot be stripped of your US citizenship involuntarily. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trop_v._Dulles. So your rights are, in fact, unalienable just not in the lofty sense of being spooky.
My correspondent could hand over the keys to the authorities if asked, but it wouldn't do any good because they wouldn't know the correct algorithm.
They'll figure it out, find the code on your computer or read you /. posts.
Feingold got BiCRA passed but one of the main planks didn't make it past the Supreme Court. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Commission_v._Wisconsin_Right_to_Life,_Inc. that created a huge loophole through the "TV ads" part of the law. Essentially, unless the ad cannot be interpreted in any other way as supporting/opposing a candidate, the FEC cannot constitutionally prevent individuals from airing it.
I give Feingold a lot of credit for making it pass, but ultimately, it ends up in the dustbin.
If they take a laptop to search it for 24 hours they should first detail their "reasonable suspicion" on a form to which the person's whose laptop is being taken receives a copy to chat with their lawyer about.
What exactly are you going to sue them for? Seizure for inspection at the border is legal (how else would the USDA inspect imported food?) and so you can S1983 them for violation of a Constitutional right.
I don't particularly object to your suggestion, I just don't see that it would be of any use.
Probable cause required after 24 hours? No. Probable cause must be required before search.
Your views on this political question* are admirable (and I would even agree but the devil's in the details of implementation) but they are also at variance with most of the electorate. For myself, I have (grudgingly) accepted that such political preferences are legitimate even when they conflict with my personal preferences. I have no qualms saying that people are making a big mistake giving up freedom for liberty but, from a point of view of epistemic humility, I also have to concede that they have every right to make the decision.
The best thing we can do is attempt to convince people and that starts first and foremost with acknowledging the legitimacy of their position (while, of course, reserving the right to respectfully disagree).
* Since for 250 years, the Constitution has permitted warrantless, suspicionless searches of anything crossing an international border, it is considered a settled legal question. /.ers can complain that the true meaning of the fourth amendment is something different (I'm sure many will) but the law remains.
An ARM processor at 400 Mhz is not even close to a real x86 processor at 400Mhz. First of all, you'd have to port all the kernel junk from x86 to ARM (hint: not fun) but more importantly, the performance just isn't there. ARM is designed for power-thriftiness, not performance.
I have a 400Mhz ARM in my phone (HTC PPC6800) and the thing has serious trouble rendering complex HTML (Opera Mobile 9.5, part of the slowdown might be scaling images down to 320x240 though) -- something that my old PC doesn't even blink at.
Imho it's the worst kind of IM client there is, except it works.
/begin{flamebait} /end{flamebait}
And this is precisely what's annoying with people that put principle ahead of practicality. Software is instructions for a computer to do a useful task, not a platform for grand theoretical bullshit. It exists precisely for the purpose of working. If it doesn't work for the intended purpose (e.g. DRM-encumbered nonsense), it's not useful software. If it does work, I give less than a shit about the other attributes.
Take a look at the average Linux distribution. Count the total amount of source code from Linux. Now count the total contribution from the GNU project.
WARNING, EXTENDED (hopefully thoughtful) CAR ANALOGY FOLLOWS
Volume of source code is not a good measure of relative importance any more than a fuel tank is the most important part of a car because it's the heaviest. Nor is ease of replacement probative -- I can replace the timing belt on my car in 20 minutes (faster than changing oil), yet I would still it as a critical component. Nor is the hypothetical functionality with the component removed a good measure -- remove the battery and my car won't go anywhere at all, yet it is still a peripheral part.
The only way (AFAICT) to analyze the relative positions of components of a complex system is by the degree to which they interact with other parts -- the degree of 'connectedness' they are in the network. The timing belt is significant because it interfaces the crankshaft (output power) with the valves and fuel injection system (input power). It's right at the center of things, talking with all the major players. The battery, on the other hand, is isolated from the system save for a single connection, one that provides only bulk voltage. It does not talk to anyone (unless it's dying :-), nor does it receive any information. In other words, it's just not an interesting.
Turning to GNU/Linux, it's clear that they are both equally important on network-theoretic terms. The kernel sits right smack at the center of everything, talking and listening to everyone and sticking its thumb in every pie. glibc, BASH, X, etc . . are likewise important, mediating between the user and the kernel, talking to the applications, linking libraries and likewise, have their thumbs in all the pies. If you drew a graph (in the mathematical sense) of the GNU/Linux system together, the two would very heavily connected at the center while everything else went around them.
Elevating one above the other is utter nonsense.
IMHO, even a 10% chance* of these sort of breach justifies the dickish practice of immediately cutting off all access to laid-off/fired employees and having security walk them out. For the 90% that don't deserve to be treated that way (and will be justifiably bitter), it's a shitty thing to do. That 10%, however, represents such a huge security risk that I don't really see a better option.
* I make no statement whatsoever on what the actual fraction of admins would do such a thing. I don't think TFA is particularly credible, considering the company. *
This is only for TV service. I had FIOS internet for nearly two years before my county approved Verizon as a cable TV provider.
We did too (Waltham MA) but given how hard they push their 3-fer package, I imagine that's where all the profit is.
Let's revisit the GP for a second:
Let's say, I, as a developer write some software and give it to you, but just the binary. Let's say I let that you use, copy, and modify that software as you wish. In other words, you have natural freedoms to do as you please. Now RMS comes along as says "That's not freedom! you didn't give him the source!"
What I contend RMS should have said is "That's not freedom, the way I see it" or, "I think your definition of freedom is too narrow" or something that recognizes the particular subjectivity of his definition. The term "Free Software" is just too general a phrase to be subject to arbitrary redefinition.
You are correct, of course, that in the context of the FSF or GPL, "Free software" acquires a different meaning, but that's only within that context. Assuming that every time someone on the internet talks about "free software" (and doesn't explicitly link it to the particular FSF conception of freedom) they intend to invoke that context is presumptuous (although the speaker should probably be more clear).
Free software, per its definition, gives the recipient four freedoms:
I wasn't aware that the FSF had the right to redefine phrases in natural English. They certainly have a definition of free software but I see no reason that the GP needs to adopt that definition as his own. RMS is not the ultimate authority on the meaning of words in the English language.
As a general supporter of the FSF's goals (in a practicality-oriented sort of way), I have always been philosophically disturbed by their claim to attach a technical definition to an ordinary phrase. If they wanted to introduce a novel concept, the four freedoms, they should do so in an intellectually honest way that does not lay claim to ordinary adjectives. The easiest way would be to invent a word -- "freefour" or "fourfree" (I'm not a marketing droid, that's the best I can come up with).
\end{minortechnicalrant}
PS. To the GGP that complained about MS nicking SMB and "extracting licensing fees", I've never had a problem inter-operating Windows File Sharing with various Linuxes. Just sayin.
The AT&T uVerse boxes are actually quite complicated. It's a fiber ONT connected to a full-fledged DSLAM that is then spliced into the normal copper lines. If you can figure out a way to make smaller fiber switches and DSLAMs you'd be rich. http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=DSLAM&btnG=Search+Images
I think that, except in extreme cases, they should worry about upgrading all of us first rather than roll out new services.
It's amazing that in a free country, one free citizen would demand that another citizen perform a service for him. I cannot imagine the sense of entitlement that leads you think that you are justified in making such demands.
Why should localities get to be the subset of people that decides? Maybe it should be the county or some other arbitrary division. Maybe my neighborhood should get a veto on it because our standards are different from those jerks across town. Maybe my block has different standards than the next block over. Maybe those evil telcos should customize their equipment suit the particular architecture of each house.
I'm not saying that you *cannot* impose these requirements. I'm saying that you have to understand there are important trade-offs here. As you make the requirements more stringent (and less uniform), you raise the price of implementation and thus slow down the rollout of new services (it suffices to say that I think that's a terrible result). There's no law that says they have to upgrade your copper/coax and, if they don't see a profit, they won't do it. That's how it is were my parents live -- they will have to live with copper and coax indefinitely while I have a fiber optic connection right to my house.
The telco is *not* going to say "NO FIOS FOR YOU" if the community demanded they bury these turds. They will just jack the price up by $0.01 and amortize the cost over 20 years.
You have no idea how much more expensive it is to bury all that equipment and then to maintain the buried equipment. Think factors, not percent. If the density in the target area is low, the telco would just as well leave the old copper and coax in place. That's what they are doing where my parents live -- low density, buried lines, no new services. Not even uVerse. Just live with your pretty copper and coax.
The cheaper it is to install new services, the faster and more widely deployed those services will be. That's just common sense folks!
Lamenting the sad state of broadband in the US (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/13/1648211) is a common theme here, so you'd think we'd be gung-ho for any utility to start installing new gear. Instead, we get complaints that the new gear is ugly and that telcos don't want to negotiate a different standard with every little town. I hope we can at least agree that it's logical for the telcos to want one standard per state, at least for the sanity of their installer techs. I'm not objecting to making that standard rigorous, just so long as there's only one of them.
Personal experience, our town (Waltham, MA) was among the first to get FIOS strung up everywhere. It sits on the utility poles, which now carry power, copper, coaxial and fiber. It's not the prettiest set up in the world, but it's really not that bad. I used to live in a suburb that buried all our cables, which was considerably prettier. It also means that they aren't going to get fiber (installation costs aren't justified) and when there was an outage, it took weeks to get it resolved. I much prefer the uglier solution.
Being a poll worker is not, nor has it ever been, an integral part of the democratic process. You are guaranteed a right to vote, a right to have that vote faithfully counted (every Diebold machine ought to be incinerated at 4000F) and the right not to have your vote diluted by fraudulent votes. No one in their right mind would assert that every citizen has the right to monitor the polls as an official poll worker.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/191255&from=rss
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/georgia-takes-a-beating-in-the-cyberwar-with-russia/
When the crisis abates, I expect the botnets will be returned to their regularly scheduled duties. Quite a versatile tool those botnets -- pimping V!agr4, collapsing government sites, enhancing the male doodad, distributing pr0n, bullying your neighbors (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm). For the cost of one M1A1 tank tread, Putin bought himself a whole lot of firepower.
Advantage: Putin.
Unless your time is worth more than $2000/hr, better locked and inconvenienced than compromised.
The court issued a 'temporary restraining order', which is legal-jargon for "don't do anything until we can get a decent hearing". It does not mean that the court has accepted the MBTA's position or even jurisdiction over the case. It is merely a tool* to ensure that neither party can unilaterally change the status-quo just because the courts do not operate 24/7 and are sort of slow (making sure everyone has a chance to speak generally doesn't allow for fast decision making). Rarely does a TRO last more than a week until a preliminary hearing can be held.
IMO, therefore, even if the MBTA has no case whatsoever (almost certainly true) they are entitled to a TRO for a few days until the court can read (and almost certainly deny) their application for a permanent injunction. I don't see any major damage from having a presentation delayed for all of 72 hours either (note, if we were talking permanent injunction, it would be totally bogus -- that's a different matter entirely).
* Yes, I'm aware the information was already published on the internet and that it cannot effectively be "recalled". That is not the point -- the MBTA, as any other litigant, has the right to have a court hear their case -- even if they really don't have one.