Nope. They really are constructed and/or tested to higher standards. Now, you may have a poor experience putting high-end drives into a crap situation - that's not necessarily the drive's fault.
If you start talking to a company that wants to sell you a lot of drives, and for relatively cheap (a couple of bucks per managed-RAIDed gigabyte), ask them about the duty cycle on the drives. A lot of consumer and even midline drives have duty cycles of less than 40% (put heavy read/write cycles on the disk for less than 40% of the time it is powered up). Enterprise drives are rated up to 100% utilization. If you take a midline drive and an enterprise drive of the same type (SAS, SATA, FC, etc.) and run them at full load head-to-head, statistically, the midline or consumer drives will fail sooner.
I thought the same thing. Although, from the site: > One of the hardest parts of hunting for signals > from space is separating what might be an ET > signal from the earth-based RFI sources. We > think that human eyes, and our amazing brains, > should be better than a computer at finding > interesting signals in the noise.
So it's an attempt to use the brain to manually pick out patterns? (I can't tell yet because the site may be overloaded - I get a "Loading..." screen but no updates.
I'm not sure that's a great idea, since the brain tends to make associations even if none truly exist.
>..."because my company is doing that and I don't like competition" Why bother to refute the claim itself when you can simply smear the supposed originator? The use of ad hominem remarks weakens your intended message.
I've long thought the same thing, without the use of clever quotes. Where I originally came to this realization was a volunteer librarian, upon hearing I worked "with computers", asking me how best to filter the local library internet connection. We spoke for an hour or so, and I finally became enlightened to my own arguments. You can't "solve" a problem like speech with 100% certainty without destroying the benefit of the remaining, uncensored, content.
> how about this for a famous quote: > > "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." - George Bernard Shaw
How about this? "He who trains his tongue to quote the learned sages, will be known far and wide as a smart ass." -- Howard Kandel
OK, ribbing aside, what point were you trying to make? Were you saying that there are technological solutions to social problems? Any that are actually and successfully in use? Were you arguing that he said something couldn't be done, or just bickering with an AC?
Also, as pointed out elsewhere in the comments, the performance balked at by the OP above is quite possible. It may not be as cheap or simple as we might imagine, but it's hard to say something is impossible, given enough time and effort (read: money). It's just a large transaction processor.
In TFA, the "yesterday" link appears to have been fat-fingered. Here is the fixed link: -- [...]was automatically passing their mobile numbers to any site they visited[...] --
ls has a valid reason to read these -- you want to see uids/gids as user names, not numeric values I don't use Skype, and don't have my own strace, so I don't have context. I'd be interested to see the whole strace. Perhaps it's checking $HOME, perhaps it's as this guy points out. Either way,/etc/passwd is world-readable. The stupid title of "Skype reads password[s]..." is nonsensical at best.
As for the Firefox jazz, did they allow the default install of the Skype Firefox plugin? If so, why wouldn't it poke around in ~/.mozilla?
There's lots of information we don't have, and sensationalist crap ensues. If someone is really worried, why bother using Skype? It's a service, not a $DEITY-given right, to use.
If you want commercial software, HP will sell you quality-assured Lustre and decent hardware in HA configurations, relabelled "HP SFS". Also, in the spirit of full-disclosure, I am a supporting engineer of Polyserve, now owned by HP.
If you're looking for a HA storage solution, have you looked at Cluster Gateway? It's essentially a Polyserve file system with the NFS or CIFS solution pack, depending on which platform you're implementing. The software-only costs are relatively low (I've been bitching for a while that they're giving it away,) and you can use commodity servers and storage.
A scalable, clustered file system, that if properly implemented (the important part,) is single-point-of-failure immune. The minimum is two nodes - that's a scale-down if I ever heard one. It works with iSCSI (Openfiler is used by me in my test labs) or FC storage.
Think of it as GFS + Redhat Cluster Suite, but better implemented. On the other hand, if you're looking for zero-dollar-investment, check out Cluster Suite and GFS with CentOS for free. The user interface is terrible, and simple tasks are made hard, but it does work well, again, if implemented properly.
Assuming you mean Microsoft SQL server, check the Avg. Disk Queue Length metric to see if your bottle neck is on the server rather than the storage. On Linux, you'd find the disk queue length in/proc/scsi/qla*/#, where # is different based on number of ports / HBAs / etc. Check out a site such as this one for some good metrics to look at.
There's lots of tuning that can take place on the server side before you start re-striping. That being said, more spindles will likely help on the storage side.
A couple of things to point out: Utilization Law: (Utilization) = (Throughput) × (Service Time)
So if it takes 5ms service time per physical I/O, 2000 I/O operations could take up to 10 seconds. Listing a large directory share might do that to you, as Windows stat()s each directory / file, then starts traversing the filesystem *for you* to get those pretty "You have X objects in this folder taking Y MB of space" mouse-overs.
It may be a huge number of things. It could be a poorly laid out directory tree, with 2 million object in a single directory, or bad SQL db design, or horribly written SQL script, or a combination.
In short, call your vendor, ask for help. If that doesn't do it, call your sales person, complain, and be prepared to reluctantly accept professional services to come on-site for a fee, assuming they have some contingency (i.e. if this doesn't work better, I don't have to pay.)
It doesn't matter how small it is. What about the same small patch for Win98 or 95 or 3.11? It's small, right? Why not give it to everyone for free?
That's not how software development works - it's still a very expensive undertaking in engineering a fix, testing, QA, review, release, communication, etc. MS doesn't have the luxury of someone like Legacy Fedora, and say "well, it should work, but if not, *shrug*." They have an expectation of quality, that if they F that up, as they have in the past, the Slashdot crowd will go nuts and post big stories with lots of discussion and useless tags (like defectivebydesign - WTF? That's for DRM, what does a TZ update have to do with that?)
I think the big difference here is that the TZ and glibc packages have been a part of the standard upgrade path for some time now, whereas the MS patches are still optional (for 2k3, XP, etc.)
By the way, why hasn't anyone (so far in my reading - I may come across others later in other threads,) pointed out that Win2k is quite old. Sure, some companies are still maintaining NT, and who knows what's going to happen to them, but come on. Do *you* go 6 or 7 or more years without upgrading any packages and wonder why it's such a PITA to upgrade? Now add support to the mix - how long should a company supply free support? Heck, try getting support for free software that's really old, like Legacy Fedora, without the fix being "Hey, upgrade, you jerk."
The idea of less signage is already being practiced in the U.S. to a small degree.
One example is in Huntington Beach, CA, where along Pacific Coast Highway, marked crosswalks were removed because it was found that pedestrians assumed they had the right of way and were struck while crossing to the beach. They did have the right of way, technically speaking, but tell that to the guy that you just stepped out in front of and mowed you down.
In that area, all intersections are unmarked crosswalks, so no worries about jay-walking there.
The end result is fewer automobile vs. pedestrian collisions, since the pedestrian is now much more cautious on average.
My guess is that, as has been suggested, a courier lost a tape. It's possibly mislabelled at their storage site, sent to another customer (not all that reassuring, but I know for a fact that it's possible - our since-fired tape storage facility delivered another site's tapes to our data center one time), or wedged between some couch cushions.
Either way, encryption is not always an option when sending tapes. For example, my employer (of which I am not a representitive), a financial institution, is required to send tapes to the IRS. It is only within the last year that we have been able to send any format other than open-reel tapes. We can now send IBM square tapes... they're not able to accept any other electronic format - no ISDN line, no SFTP, not even modem.
So it may not be completely Ameritrade's fault even if the data were not encrypted. A simple dump tape of specific customer on it's way to the Fed / IRS / etc may have fallen off of a truck. I personally wouldn't be too upset if I were a customer.
I understand - I personally don't like their idea of staffing (hire a minimum of cheap fools; "Maybe if we stop answering, the customer will stop asking"), but I can't think of a single chain that doesn't have their fair share of problems. Have you ever asked for help at a Fry's electronics? Sweet Jesus, good luck.
I guess my point is that I see a lot of bashing going on because of a company's success. The bigger the company, the more the bashing. Best Buy should punish the cashier, and severly punish the manager of the store in this story, IMO, but does this really reflect their corporate policy? Have they colluded with crooked cops in back-road cash-only deals? Is there a Minister of Fucking With People That Pay With Non-Popular Currency? Or do they just have quality control issues?
Should we boycot Ralphs/Kroeger/Albertsons/etc due to their heavy-handed union practices? Should we boycott Walmart for their quality issues and hiring practices? Where's left to go when you decide that anyone's bad experience is enough to warrant abstinence from patronage?
BillyBlaze - I do have to say that you presented the facts and arguments very well. Hats off to you for that. It is nice to see a serious discussion in this forum.
Also, from looking at your SF project, I can definitely see your point. Although you have obviously made something that some schlub like me can use, some other conglomeration may have already called this idea theirs, albeit not a product I could readily find, let alone afford.
Again, I see both sides of the argument, and you have placed yours very well.
I wish you the best of luck with your project. Note: my iTunes has a similar feature. Just for grins and giggles, I'd like to see who did it first - you may have a nice case on your hands:)
This does beg the question: "Why is a copyright not the best way to protect software?"
I take the stance that another poster does: patenting ideas is a cop-out. Patent the implementation. But a patent should be able to fall on any product, such as a new innovation on a car, a super-duper toothbrush, or, yes, a piece of software.
Don't get me wrong - I do agree with you on most points, but it does ask the qeustion - "If this was so simple and straight-forward, why didn't someone else patent it?" I sure wish I had.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, we live in a more-or-less capitalist society. I am definitely a caplitalist, although I see the socialist side of this, in a capitalist kind of way. While I do oppose the idea of "patenting ideas" (maybe I should patent that), I do see the benefit of patents, even in software (like a poster below says, protect the implementation, not the idea.) I think it's fair to patent the One-Click, even though it doesn't benefit the community. But it's OK to benefit the first person with enough balls to patent something that the rest of us think is stupid.
I suppose I'm playing devil's advocate more than anything, but if I came up with an interesting new idea (and put the work into implementing it), I don't want someone to come in, undercut me (you can't argue with free), and make off with my idea as their own.
On the other hand, I benefit from free software (and other ideas / products) every day, and I'm grateful for that. I think it's great to innovate, and release for the common good (the microchip, case in point). The point of patents is not to stifle innovation, but to prevent unfair competition. Do you think that a single person, or group of people undercutting a product that was innovated by another person is fair? I don't. We all had our chance to do it first.
In the end, I still have mixed feelings about patents. They require a level of objectivity that's hard to find in a beaurocratic position. On one hand, they're necessary to protect yourself, and on the other hand, the details can cause true innovation to suffer.
I see your point, but if there is no prior art on something as simple as One Click purchase, all anyone else can do is kick themselves for not coming up with the idea of patenting it.
In many cases, patents are stupid, but they're still necessary in the long run. Otherwise, anyone could copy your idea for a widget, and produce it at a cost less than yours - after all, they didn't have the R&D costs of developing a prototype of the idea.
If the OSS community comes up with an idea first, they can claim prior art, no? Otherwise, the idea (or implementation) rightfully belongs to the person or corporation that comes up with it.
Proving prior art is a major nusaince, but if it happens enough, will companies place their patents under more scrutiny rather than figting for something they'll likely lose?
As a voter in Orange County, I can honestly say that this was an "operator error" condition. As much as I distrust electronic voting without accountability, I can truly say that the voting around here was conducted by people who were as unexpecting, untrained, and unquilified as can be.
My experience started with arguing with the person who checked my name. For some reason (he couldn't tell me why), my signature line requested ID - most didn't. As he pointed to another name, and asked me to sign, I told him I couldn't sign at that line - I had to sign the line corresponding with my name. I swear it took over a minute to get him to move his pointing finger off of my line, so I could sign and get on with the vote.
After this, I got a paper card from another poll-worker. I don't know how this was matched with me, but it was prefixed with LIB (I'm a registered Libertarian), so I assumed was as OK as possible. I moved on to yet another person, handing out the slips of paper with the four-digit code. It took me a while to get this, as he struggled with the machine. I finally got what I hope was the correct code, and made my votes.
Afterwards, as I tried to find someone to talk to about getting a printout of my vote, I found that no one would even make eye contact with me! They were like McDonald's employees in this regard... it's not they were doing anything better - there were no other voters at that exact moment. They all just stood around talking about their neighbors, wives, turtles, etc.
All in all, I liked the interface of the voting machines, but felt a bit unsure, since there's no way it can be proven I voted for who I did. The biggest problem, it seems to me, was callous volunteers, who didn't understand, nor want to, the current voting system to any degree.
Either way, I'll continue to be biased against electronic voting machines.
Right now, Fujitsu's new ATM's are running Windows 2000. Chew on that one for a while... Their older models are running (wait for it...) OS/2!
Interestingly, I've never seen one of their older ATMs have a real problem, considering that they're running an old OS on old hardware (you're lucky to have better than a 486 in there). Hardware failure happens sometimes, and that's about it.
Also, think about using Windows on the back-end. For example, Bank of America's loss of their ATM network a few months ago due to a Windows worm (Slammer, if I remember correctly). If, say, your encryption management system is running in a SQL server, even though you have redundency in your hardware encryption devices, your host, and everywhere else, what good is all that?
What about QOS filtering? For example:
They decide your streaming MP3 server has less value on the network than your neighbor's porn-binge. Do they ever crank the QOS knob? Or is that even being used on a widespred scale yet?
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. They really are constructed and/or tested to higher standards. Now, you may have a poor experience putting high-end drives into a crap situation - that's not necessarily the drive's fault.
If you start talking to a company that wants to sell you a lot of drives, and for relatively cheap (a couple of bucks per managed-RAIDed gigabyte), ask them about the duty cycle on the drives. A lot of consumer and even midline drives have duty cycles of less than 40% (put heavy read/write cycles on the disk for less than 40% of the time it is powered up). Enterprise drives are rated up to 100% utilization. If you take a midline drive and an enterprise drive of the same type (SAS, SATA, FC, etc.) and run them at full load head-to-head, statistically, the midline or consumer drives will fail sooner.
I thought the same thing. Although, from the site:
> One of the hardest parts of hunting for signals
> from space is separating what might be an ET
> signal from the earth-based RFI sources. We
> think that human eyes, and our amazing brains,
> should be better than a computer at finding
> interesting signals in the noise.
So it's an attempt to use the brain to manually pick out patterns? (I can't tell yet because the site may be overloaded - I get a "Loading..." screen but no updates.
I'm not sure that's a great idea, since the brain tends to make associations even if none truly exist.
> ..."because my company is doing that and I don't like competition"
Why bother to refute the claim itself when you can simply smear the supposed originator? The use of ad hominem remarks weakens your intended message.
I've long thought the same thing, without the use of clever quotes. Where I originally came to this realization was a volunteer librarian, upon hearing I worked "with computers", asking me how best to filter the local library internet connection. We spoke for an hour or so, and I finally became enlightened to my own arguments. You can't "solve" a problem like speech with 100% certainty without destroying the benefit of the remaining, uncensored, content.
> how about this for a famous quote:
>
> "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." - George Bernard Shaw
How about this?
"He who trains his tongue to quote the learned sages, will be known far and wide as a smart ass."
-- Howard Kandel
OK, ribbing aside, what point were you trying to make? Were you saying that there are technological solutions to social problems? Any that are actually and successfully in use? Were you arguing that he said something couldn't be done, or just bickering with an AC?
Also, as pointed out elsewhere in the comments, the performance balked at by the OP above is quite possible. It may not be as cheap or simple as we might imagine, but it's hard to say something is impossible, given enough time and effort (read: money). It's just a large transaction processor.
In TFA, the "yesterday" link appears to have been fat-fingered. Here is the fixed link:
--
[...]was automatically passing their mobile numbers to any site they visited[...]
--
As for the Firefox jazz, did they allow the default install of the Skype Firefox plugin? If so, why wouldn't it poke around in ~/.mozilla?
There's lots of information we don't have, and sensationalist crap ensues. If someone is really worried, why bother using Skype? It's a service, not a $DEITY-given right, to use.
This is perfect timing. A co-worker of mine came back from a meeting to this gem on his desktop.
If you're looking for a HA storage solution, have you looked at Cluster Gateway? It's essentially a Polyserve file system with the NFS or CIFS solution pack, depending on which platform you're implementing. The software-only costs are relatively low (I've been bitching for a while that they're giving it away,) and you can use commodity servers and storage.
A scalable, clustered file system, that if properly implemented (the important part,) is single-point-of-failure immune. The minimum is two nodes - that's a scale-down if I ever heard one. It works with iSCSI (Openfiler is used by me in my test labs) or FC storage.
Think of it as GFS + Redhat Cluster Suite, but better implemented. On the other hand, if you're looking for zero-dollar-investment, check out Cluster Suite and GFS with CentOS for free. The user interface is terrible, and simple tasks are made hard, but it does work well, again, if implemented properly.
Assuming you mean Microsoft SQL server, check the Avg. Disk Queue Length metric to see if your bottle neck is on the server rather than the storage. On Linux, you'd find the disk queue length in /proc/scsi/qla*/#, where # is different based on number of ports / HBAs / etc. Check out a site such as this one for some good metrics to look at.
There's lots of tuning that can take place on the server side before you start re-striping. That being said, more spindles will likely help on the storage side.
A couple of things to point out:
Utilization Law:
(Utilization) = (Throughput) × (Service Time)
For utilization 1
(Queue Length) = (Arrival Rate) × (Service Time)
So if it takes 5ms service time per physical I/O, 2000 I/O operations could take up to 10 seconds. Listing a large directory share might do that to you, as Windows stat()s each directory / file, then starts traversing the filesystem *for you* to get those pretty "You have X objects in this folder taking Y MB of space" mouse-overs.
It may be a huge number of things. It could be a poorly laid out directory tree, with 2 million object in a single directory, or bad SQL db design, or horribly written SQL script, or a combination.
In short, call your vendor, ask for help. If that doesn't do it, call your sales person, complain, and be prepared to reluctantly accept professional services to come on-site for a fee, assuming they have some contingency (i.e. if this doesn't work better, I don't have to pay.)
It doesn't matter how small it is. What about the same small patch for Win98 or 95 or 3.11? It's small, right? Why not give it to everyone for free?
That's not how software development works - it's still a very expensive undertaking in engineering a fix, testing, QA, review, release, communication, etc. MS doesn't have the luxury of someone like Legacy Fedora, and say "well, it should work, but if not, *shrug*." They have an expectation of quality, that if they F that up, as they have in the past, the Slashdot crowd will go nuts and post big stories with lots of discussion and useless tags (like defectivebydesign - WTF? That's for DRM, what does a TZ update have to do with that?)
Well, and glibc... Don't forget that.
I think the big difference here is that the TZ and glibc packages have been a part of the standard upgrade path for some time now, whereas the MS patches are still optional (for 2k3, XP, etc.)
By the way, why hasn't anyone (so far in my reading - I may come across others later in other threads,) pointed out that Win2k is quite old. Sure, some companies are still maintaining NT, and who knows what's going to happen to them, but come on. Do *you* go 6 or 7 or more years without upgrading any packages and wonder why it's such a PITA to upgrade? Now add support to the mix - how long should a company supply free support? Heck, try getting support for free software that's really old, like Legacy Fedora, without the fix being "Hey, upgrade, you jerk."
The idea of less signage is already being practiced in the U.S. to a small degree.
One example is in Huntington Beach, CA, where along Pacific Coast Highway, marked crosswalks were removed because it was found that pedestrians assumed they had the right of way and were struck while crossing to the beach. They did have the right of way, technically speaking, but tell that to the guy that you just stepped out in front of and mowed you down.
In that area, all intersections are unmarked crosswalks, so no worries about jay-walking there.
The end result is fewer automobile vs. pedestrian collisions, since the pedestrian is now much more cautious on average.
My guess is that, as has been suggested, a courier lost a tape. It's possibly mislabelled at their storage site, sent to another customer (not all that reassuring, but I know for a fact that it's possible - our since-fired tape storage facility delivered another site's tapes to our data center one time), or wedged between some couch cushions.
Either way, encryption is not always an option when sending tapes. For example, my employer (of which I am not a representitive), a financial institution, is required to send tapes to the IRS. It is only within the last year that we have been able to send any format other than open-reel tapes. We can now send IBM square tapes... they're not able to accept any other electronic format - no ISDN line, no SFTP, not even modem.
So it may not be completely Ameritrade's fault even if the data were not encrypted. A simple dump tape of specific customer on it's way to the Fed / IRS / etc may have fallen off of a truck. I personally wouldn't be too upset if I were a customer.
I understand - I personally don't like their idea of staffing (hire a minimum of cheap fools; "Maybe if we stop answering, the customer will stop asking"), but I can't think of a single chain that doesn't have their fair share of problems. Have you ever asked for help at a Fry's electronics? Sweet Jesus, good luck.
I guess my point is that I see a lot of bashing going on because of a company's success. The bigger the company, the more the bashing. Best Buy should punish the cashier, and severly punish the manager of the store in this story, IMO, but does this really reflect their corporate policy? Have they colluded with crooked cops in back-road cash-only deals? Is there a Minister of Fucking With People That Pay With Non-Popular Currency? Or do they just have quality control issues?
Should we boycot Ralphs/Kroeger/Albertsons/etc due to their heavy-handed union practices? Should we boycott Walmart for their quality issues and hiring practices? Where's left to go when you decide that anyone's bad experience is enough to warrant abstinence from patronage?
What kind of fool would allow that to happen? Is this just another excuse to dislike a major corporation because they obviously hired a moron?
BillyBlaze - I do have to say that you presented the facts and arguments very well. Hats off to you for that. It is nice to see a serious discussion in this forum.
:)
Also, from looking at your SF project, I can definitely see your point. Although you have obviously made something that some schlub like me can use, some other conglomeration may have already called this idea theirs, albeit not a product I could readily find, let alone afford.
Again, I see both sides of the argument, and you have placed yours very well.
I wish you the best of luck with your project. Note: my iTunes has a similar feature. Just for grins and giggles, I'd like to see who did it first - you may have a nice case on your hands
--
http://acostas.org
This does beg the question: "Why is a copyright not the best way to protect software?"
I take the stance that another poster does: patenting ideas is a cop-out. Patent the implementation. But a patent should be able to fall on any product, such as a new innovation on a car, a super-duper toothbrush, or, yes, a piece of software.
--
http://acostas.org
Don't get me wrong - I do agree with you on most points, but it does ask the qeustion - "If this was so simple and straight-forward, why didn't someone else patent it?" I sure wish I had.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, we live in a more-or-less capitalist society. I am definitely a caplitalist, although I see the socialist side of this, in a capitalist kind of way. While I do oppose the idea of "patenting ideas" (maybe I should patent that), I do see the benefit of patents, even in software (like a poster below says, protect the implementation, not the idea.) I think it's fair to patent the One-Click, even though it doesn't benefit the community. But it's OK to benefit the first person with enough balls to patent something that the rest of us think is stupid.
I suppose I'm playing devil's advocate more than anything, but if I came up with an interesting new idea (and put the work into implementing it), I don't want someone to come in, undercut me (you can't argue with free), and make off with my idea as their own.
On the other hand, I benefit from free software (and other ideas / products) every day, and I'm grateful for that. I think it's great to innovate, and release for the common good (the microchip, case in point). The point of patents is not to stifle innovation, but to prevent unfair competition. Do you think that a single person, or group of people undercutting a product that was innovated by another person is fair? I don't. We all had our chance to do it first.
In the end, I still have mixed feelings about patents. They require a level of objectivity that's hard to find in a beaurocratic position. On one hand, they're necessary to protect yourself, and on the other hand, the details can cause true innovation to suffer.
--
http://acostas.org
I see your point, but if there is no prior art on something as simple as One Click purchase, all anyone else can do is kick themselves for not coming up with the idea of patenting it.
In many cases, patents are stupid, but they're still necessary in the long run. Otherwise, anyone could copy your idea for a widget, and produce it at a cost less than yours - after all, they didn't have the R&D costs of developing a prototype of the idea.
Excuse my ignorance, but is this really an issue?
If the OSS community comes up with an idea first, they can claim prior art, no? Otherwise, the idea (or implementation) rightfully belongs to the person or corporation that comes up with it.
Proving prior art is a major nusaince, but if it happens enough, will companies place their patents under more scrutiny rather than figting for something they'll likely lose?
--
http://acostas.org
As a voter in Orange County, I can honestly say that this was an "operator error" condition. As much as I distrust electronic voting without accountability, I can truly say that the voting around here was conducted by people who were as unexpecting, untrained, and unquilified as can be.
My experience started with arguing with the person who checked my name. For some reason (he couldn't tell me why), my signature line requested ID - most didn't. As he pointed to another name, and asked me to sign, I told him I couldn't sign at that line - I had to sign the line corresponding with my name. I swear it took over a minute to get him to move his pointing finger off of my line, so I could sign and get on with the vote.
After this, I got a paper card from another poll-worker. I don't know how this was matched with me, but it was prefixed with LIB (I'm a registered Libertarian), so I assumed was as OK as possible. I moved on to yet another person, handing out the slips of paper with the four-digit code. It took me a while to get this, as he struggled with the machine. I finally got what I hope was the correct code, and made my votes.
Afterwards, as I tried to find someone to talk to about getting a printout of my vote, I found that no one would even make eye contact with me! They were like McDonald's employees in this regard... it's not they were doing anything better - there were no other voters at that exact moment. They all just stood around talking about their neighbors, wives, turtles, etc.
All in all, I liked the interface of the voting machines, but felt a bit unsure, since there's no way it can be proven I voted for who I did. The biggest problem, it seems to me, was callous volunteers, who didn't understand, nor want to, the current voting system to any degree.
Either way, I'll continue to be biased against electronic voting machines.
Right now, Fujitsu's new ATM's are running Windows 2000. Chew on that one for a while... Their older models are running (wait for it...) OS/2!
Interestingly, I've never seen one of their older ATMs have a real problem, considering that they're running an old OS on old hardware (you're lucky to have better than a 486 in there). Hardware failure happens sometimes, and that's about it.
Also, think about using Windows on the back-end. For example, Bank of America's loss of their ATM network a few months ago due to a Windows worm (Slammer, if I remember correctly). If, say, your encryption management system is running in a SQL server, even though you have redundency in your hardware encryption devices, your host, and everywhere else, what good is all that?
And a little more info on "insiders"
over here
What about QOS filtering? For example: They decide your streaming MP3 server has less value on the network than your neighbor's porn-binge. Do they ever crank the QOS knob? Or is that even being used on a widespred scale yet?