For your consideration, may I present my[1] idea for a voter-verifiable counting system:
---
In addition to any other vote-counting or verification system, a county elections office could take a full optical scan of the ballot papers. The data from these scans would be made available to all who request it; anyone could acquire the data and perform their own re-count with any method of their own devising.
This would provide complete transparency for the automated portion of the counting process.
The problem with optical-mark scanners, of course, is that the scanner's internal software and firmware is vulnerable to tampering. Such a tampered machine cannot change the ballots it reads, but it can misinterpret them.
By providing a raw image scan to the public, we'd be enabling many eyes to provide their own interpretation of the ballots. Any optical-scan vulnerability would become moot. We would go beyond a voter-verified ballot, and get to a voter-verified count.
This is technically achievable with commercial off-the-shelf hardware for well under $100,000 per county in capital expenditures. Specifically:
* Industrial scanners of sufficient reliability are available. At my workplace we have a "light" duty commercial scanner with a duty cycle of 8,500 scans per day; this machine cost around $7,000. If county clerks were to have about 5 days to produce the scans, two of these scanners could completely scan the ballots for all but the largest counties. And, of course, heavier duty scanners are available.
* Since industrial scanners are not optimized for ballot reading or even optical-mark recognition, it would be much more difficult for any malicious entity to successfully tamper with their software to produce inaccurate ballot image scans. It's much more difficult for software to produce an incorrect image than an incorrect interpretation of an image. What's more, these scanners are available from several manufacturers; if one distrusts any or all scanner vendors, one could simply scan the original ballots with a variety of different manufacturers' scanners and compare the results.
* For the standard optical-scan ballot, a fax-quality scan would be sufficient for a voter-verified count. Better scans are possible for higher time, money, and data storage budgets, but I don't think they would be necessary as a practical matter.
* The data storage requirement for an approximately fax-quality scan of every Oregon ballot - approximately 2 million ballots with 100% turnout - would be under 500 gigabytes uncompressed per statewide election. (And ballot scans should be highly compressible even with lossless and error-correcting algorithms.) Portable hard drives that large are available for around $300. Most individual county ballot scan datasets would even fit on larger iPods.
---
This brings up a couple other problems, of course. Foremost, the ballots have to be on ADF-feedable paper, and probably had best be marked ballots rather than punched-paper. Also, the question of what to do with a voter-made distinctive or identifying mark on the ballot needs to be addressed. (Distinctive marks could lead to buyer-verified vote buying.)
But still, it's a huge step beyond just trusting the county's optical-scanning ballot interpreter.
[1: Actually this is my brother's idea, which I have modified slightly.]
I'm not saying that it's good or bad; I haven't used Vista at all so I have no basis to judge. I'm just kinda shocked that PCWorld didn't include the latest PC operating system in a top 100 list.
That's a conspicuous silence which speaks volumes about Vista.
"yeah, I posted the same thing in the last thread."
Oh! Good. I meant to do that, but as it turned out I didn't even get to ready any of the comments on that one. I'm glad someone pointed this out in there. Thanks!
How many software assurance accounts are active for Windows XP Home or Pro? If I'm not mistaken, every one of those would provide an upgrade license to some flavor of Vista. That in turn would, I'd think, be counted as a "Vista license sold."
That would be nice, I guess. But it shouldn't ever have been expected from the new BSG. The original was crammed with all manner of mystical stuff. To be a true "re-imagining" of the original, the new one has to make a nod to that aspect of the original.
For what it's worth, I think they've got a much stronger and deeper story for leaving those elements in. The Cylons would not be a very interesting adversary if they were nothing but machines; the obscurity of their motivations for assassinating the Colonies lends the story quite a bit of interest.
"... the main story has been tangled up in a load of tired existential and spiritual nonsense that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The finale of Season 3 even has Starbuck coming back from the dead, apparently as a figment of Lee's imagination."
If you'd been paying attention to the existential and spiritual nonsense, you'd realize that it may well be the driving force behind what you call the "main plot". Also, that Starbuck probably isn't back from the dead because she never died. I think that in the BSG universe, the gods are quite real (although perhaps not what we think of as gods) and Starbuck is favored by - or maybe a personification of - the goddess Aurora.
Or maybe it's all a bulshit distraction. Hard to say.:-)
I'll be sad to see it go, because it's really well done. But there's only so much story for them to tell, and I'd rather have them wrap it up smartly than pad it out with a whole season of filler episodes.
While Mr. Grove's suggestions are not terrible, they are attacking problems that are ancillary to the efficient operation of the health care system as a whole.
The biggest problems in the US healthcare systems are of access and funding. Not everyone can afford access to basic healthcare, and those that can are - generally - paying too much for it. The first contention is sufficiently obvious that I won't bother supporting it. The second should be pretty clear if we look at the profits generated by health insurance companies. (All those profits? They come from our premiums.)
Private insurance has - oddly - a much higher administrative cost per healthcare dollar than public payors such as Medicaid. Strange but true. And the majority of US heatlhcare dollars are flowing through these inefficient private payors. Of course, when I say inefficient I mean inefficient for the patients... they are excellently efficient at enhancing shareholder value.
We spend enough to have very good healthcare for every person in the US, but the way we pay for it is not well adapted to that goal. More home care, retail healthcare outlets, and a unified EHR may be beneficial, but they will not solve this structural economic problem.
According to nescaum.org coal-fired power releases about 48 tons of mercury per year. TFA claims that each CF bulb contains about five milligrams of mercury. Through the magic of google's calulator, we can easily convert units: 48 short tons = 43,544,867,520 milligrams
If we could cut US coal-fired power emissions 10% by replacing incandescents with lower-power CF bulbs, we'd reduce mercury emissions by roughly 4,350,000,000 milligrams. At 5 milligrams per CF bulb, this is equivalent to 870 million CF bulbs. If all of these ended up being disposed of by incineration (sending the CFs' mercury into the atmosphere) we'd come about even in total mercury emitted at that energy savings level.
Of course, it's hard to say if the 10% emission reduction could really be achieved. I certainly don't have time to account for all those variables. However, it looks like the folks at energystar.gov have done the work. They claim that there is a net mercury emission savings due to the power savings of about 10 milligrams. (Or five milligrams, I'd say, if the CF is not properly disposed at its end-of-life.)
On the whole, so long as we still use a lot of coal for power, it looks like CFs are probably a good tradeoff.
(Also, for what it's worth, TFA is quite the hatchet job. It's either not written from anything like a neutral POV or the author failed to do his homework, I found all my numbers in five minutes with three google searches. I also found, in the energystar pdf, the recommended method for disposing of a broken CF. It involves a broom, a ziploc, and a damp paper towel... materials which should cost a good deal less than $2000 in most cases.)
Careful, at that kinda RPM it might be difficult to hold onto the straw you've grasped.:-)
"You know damned well that if he asked the school administration or the IT department, they would blindly and ignorantly just give him a template "no" with absolutely no basis whatsoever for it."
What I know damned well is that it wasn't his system.
It is customary for pen-testers who wish to be known as "good guys" to ask permisssion of their targets. Mr. Lamo is a notable exception, but he ended up paying a rather steep price for the Pure pursuit of his Art. So too is Mr. Maass paying such a price. That price is a direct and predictable result of unauthorized pen-testing.
Although it is usually easier to ask forgiveness than permission, sometimes forgiveness is much harder to actually get. If one believes some system managers think their data is so valuable, and their security is so fragile, that they are unwilling to grant a student pen-testing authority, why ever would one also think they'd be forgiving about an unauthorized pen-test that makes them look bad?
Mind you, I'm not saying the UP system managers were wise or justified or reasonable in their response. I'm just saying that their response was predictable. If you want to play white-hat go right ahead. But either do it right, with asking (and actually getting) permission and the whole nine yards, or be prepared to face the maximum consequences the target can throw back at you.
Many of the arguments we use to - justly - defend security researchers seem like they may not apply in this case.
* He used the software to bypass the security check for seven months * He distributed the software to several other students and a professor * He did not disclose the vulnerability to the vendor before releasing his exploit * He did not ask permission
Now, this is not to say that the University's use of CCA is wise or it's reaction was reasonably proportionate to the damage done. (If the damage and the policy violation is as minimal as the article claims, a 1-year suspension is insane.) But Mr. Maass did not do a good job of covering his ass, either.
It might be nice for them to undo various bits of previous silliness, such as the Patriot Act, the Patent system, tobacco subsidies... the list goes on.
"[...] it's simply tyranny by the minority, with the government held hostage to the desires of any small group willing to riot."
Whereas in the United States, we are much more enlightened. Here the government is held hostage to the desires of any small group willing to spend a great deal of money on lobbyists.
"Apparently you missed the part where I made specific reference to the Sedition Act?"
Yep! Oops.
"[...] he never deported anyone under the Alien Acts"
As I recall, there was one person he was very keen on deporting - I don't remember his name, but he was an Irishman who had worked for Franklin's grandson - but he never did catch the fellow before his term was up. Many fled rather than risk deportation as well. Still, that's true.
Nevertheless, no matter how antipartisan Adams claimed to be, he declined to veto the Sedition Act, which had a number of plainly partisan features. Cheif among them, it did not apply to criticisms of the Vice President -who happened to be Jefferson, of the opposing party - and it was designed from the start to expire at the end of Adams' term. His Administration went on to use this partisan tool to arrest and prosecute quite a few people, including several newspapermen and a sitting Congressman. Had he been truly antipartisan, he would have refused to take up such a tool.
Anyway, we're well off-topic so I'l stop here. History has debated the sins of these people more thoroughly than I intend to repeat with you - our readers can make their own judgements from less faillable sources. I simply wanted to point out that Adams himself had a role in the use of government power to suppress his opponents; it wasn't just his supporters, as you seemed - intentionally or not - to be implying.
Partly we overthrew Mossadegh to stall off the Soviets. Partly we did it because British Petroleum persuaded Winston Churchill to call his old pal Ike and ask for help.
But whatever the reasons we did it, we earned the enmity of the Iranian people by doing so. We can look back now and say "we did it because we had to", and maybe that's true. But if we were really honest with ourselves, we would also add "... even though it was completely against our values and was of very dubious morality."
A really courageous President would face this forthrightly. He would record an address to the Iranian people stating plainly that overthrowing their democratically-elected leader was contrary to our values but that we did in in pursuit of a larger struggle against the Soviets; that we realize that US actions hurt the Iranian people, and that while we felt it was necessary at the time we are regretful of the harm it caused them. Further, we wish to put the past injuries the two nations have done one another behind us, to normalize relations, and perhaps one day to beome friends.
Alas, doing this now - after Iraq became a debacle - may look like a sign of weakness, rather than of magnanimous strength. It should have been done while Khatami was President of Iran, for he would have welcomed such a move and it would have considerably strengthened the influence of Iran's moderates; perhaps winning us an ally in the region.
But we blew our chance. I doubt we'll get another so good.
Whereas Adams merely jailed or deported his opponents without trial, while gangs of his supporters smashed up rival presses and beat the pressmen.
It was a complicated time, and both sides behaved in ways that today would be considered outrageous or criminal. Still, in the main I think Adams - my ancestor - and his supporters were guilty of the greater sins.
"It's an interesting play because the Dems do have enough votes to impeach Cheney -- but the Senate would never find him guilty by a 2/3rd majority. This is of course the same brilliant strategy that the dems have been using for the last 12 years [...]"
It's worth noting that Mr. Kucinich ain't exactly part of the Democratic leadership. He's as far off the Democratic reservation as Ron Paul is off the Republican reservation. Whether this reflects prudence or cowardice among the leadership is left as an exercise for the reader.
"Finally, does Kucinich this this will help him get elected President?"
He's playing to his national base, which is solidly anti-war* and pro-impeachment. This action may not be sufficient for him to win the Presidency, but it is necessary for him to do this to have any chance at all.
[*: It's worth noting also that Kucinich has been against this war right from the start. And if I recall correctly, he's one of a very, very small number of people to have voted against the mis-named patriot act.]
"And there's nothing wrong with that. Isn't it, ultimately, about choice? Right?"
I got the impression that the article was discussing the server-side requirement for IE, not the user's voluntary browser selection. If you like IE, good on you.
But if, as you say, it's ultimately about choice, the article is pointing out how odd it is that people running websites would still design new sites demanding one particular browser.
I just know that The BOFH is going to be getting one of these systems installed soon. Only his system will occasionally reduce the oxygen levels much further than is strictly necessary for fire protection.
Slashdot Mirror
For your consideration, may I present my[1] idea for a voter-verifiable counting system:
---
In addition to any other vote-counting or verification system, a county
elections office could take a full optical scan of the ballot papers.
The data from these scans would be made available to all who request it;
anyone could acquire the data and perform their own re-count with any
method of their own devising.
This would provide complete transparency for the automated portion of
the counting process.
The problem with optical-mark scanners, of course, is that the
scanner's internal software and firmware is vulnerable to tampering.
Such a tampered machine cannot change the ballots it reads, but it can
misinterpret them.
By providing a raw image scan to the public, we'd be enabling many
eyes to provide their own interpretation of the ballots. Any
optical-scan vulnerability would become moot. We would go beyond a
voter-verified ballot, and get to a voter-verified count.
This is technically achievable with commercial off-the-shelf hardware
for well under $100,000 per county in capital expenditures.
Specifically:
* Industrial scanners of sufficient reliability are available. At my
workplace we have a "light" duty commercial scanner with a duty cycle
of 8,500 scans per day; this machine cost around $7,000. If county
clerks were to have about 5 days to produce the scans, two of these
scanners could completely scan the ballots for all but the largest
counties. And, of course, heavier duty scanners are available.
* Since industrial scanners are not optimized for ballot reading or
even optical-mark recognition, it would be much more difficult for any
malicious entity to successfully tamper with their software to produce
inaccurate ballot image scans. It's much more difficult for software
to produce an incorrect image than an incorrect interpretation of an
image. What's more, these scanners are available from several
manufacturers; if one distrusts any or all scanner vendors, one could
simply scan the original ballots with a variety of different
manufacturers' scanners and compare the results.
* For the standard optical-scan ballot, a fax-quality scan would be
sufficient for a voter-verified count. Better scans are possible for
higher time, money, and data storage budgets, but I don't think they
would be necessary as a practical matter.
* The data storage requirement for an approximately fax-quality scan
of every Oregon ballot - approximately 2 million ballots with 100%
turnout - would be under 500 gigabytes uncompressed per statewide
election. (And ballot scans should be highly compressible even with
lossless and error-correcting algorithms.) Portable hard drives that
large are available for around $300. Most individual county ballot
scan datasets would even fit on larger iPods.
---
This brings up a couple other problems, of course. Foremost, the ballots have to be on ADF-feedable paper, and probably had best be marked ballots rather than punched-paper. Also, the question of what to do with a voter-made distinctive or identifying mark on the ballot needs to be addressed. (Distinctive marks could lead to buyer-verified vote buying.)
But still, it's a huge step beyond just trusting the county's optical-scanning ballot interpreter.
[1: Actually this is my brother's idea, which I have modified slightly.]
"windows small business server markets could be in trouble"
:-)
It might be trouble for Microsoft, but for those of us in the target market it's delightful.
I'm not saying that it's good or bad; I haven't used Vista at all so I have no basis to judge. I'm just kinda shocked that PCWorld didn't include the latest PC operating system in a top 100 list.
That's a conspicuous silence which speaks volumes about Vista.
You'd think Vista would make a PCWorld top 100 list, wouldn't you?
Ouch.
"yeah, I posted the same thing in the last thread."
Oh! Good. I meant to do that, but as it turned out I didn't even get to ready any of the comments on that one. I'm glad someone pointed this out in there. Thanks!
Software Assurance .
How many software assurance accounts are active for Windows XP Home or Pro? If I'm not mistaken, every one of those would provide an upgrade license to some flavor of Vista. That in turn would, I'd think, be counted as a "Vista license sold."
I follow Grand Inquisitor de Raadt!
That would be nice, I guess. But it shouldn't ever have been expected from the new BSG. The original was crammed with all manner of mystical stuff. To be a true "re-imagining" of the original, the new one has to make a nod to that aspect of the original.
For what it's worth, I think they've got a much stronger and deeper story for leaving those elements in. The Cylons would not be a very interesting adversary if they were nothing but machines; the obscurity of their motivations for assassinating the Colonies lends the story quite a bit of interest.
"... the main story has been tangled up in a load of tired existential and spiritual nonsense that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The finale of Season 3 even has Starbuck coming back from the dead, apparently as a figment of Lee's imagination."
:-)
If you'd been paying attention to the existential and spiritual nonsense, you'd realize that it may well be the driving force behind what you call the "main plot". Also, that Starbuck probably isn't back from the dead because she never died. I think that in the BSG universe, the gods are quite real (although perhaps not what we think of as gods) and Starbuck is favored by - or maybe a personification of - the goddess Aurora.
Or maybe it's all a bulshit distraction. Hard to say.
It was not "Damn fine pie." It was "Damn fine coffee" and "This must be where pies go when they die."
Sigh. I'll just go shoot myself now.
I'll be sad to see it go, because it's really well done. But there's only so much story for them to tell, and I'd rather have them wrap it up smartly than pad it out with a whole season of filler episodes.
While Mr. Grove's suggestions are not terrible, they are attacking problems that are ancillary to the efficient operation of the health care system as a whole.
The biggest problems in the US healthcare systems are of access and funding. Not everyone can afford access to basic healthcare, and those that can are - generally - paying too much for it. The first contention is sufficiently obvious that I won't bother supporting it. The second should be pretty clear if we look at the profits generated by health insurance companies. (All those profits? They come from our premiums.)
Private insurance has - oddly - a much higher administrative cost per healthcare dollar than public payors such as Medicaid. Strange but true. And the majority of US heatlhcare dollars are flowing through these inefficient private payors. Of course, when I say inefficient I mean inefficient for the patients... they are excellently efficient at enhancing shareholder value.
We spend enough to have very good healthcare for every person in the US, but the way we pay for it is not well adapted to that goal. More home care, retail healthcare outlets, and a unified EHR may be beneficial, but they will not solve this structural economic problem.
According to nescaum.org coal-fired power releases about 48 tons of mercury per year. TFA claims that each CF bulb contains about five milligrams of mercury. Through the magic of google's calulator, we can easily convert units: 48 short tons = 43,544,867,520 milligrams
If we could cut US coal-fired power emissions 10% by replacing incandescents with lower-power CF bulbs, we'd reduce mercury emissions by roughly 4,350,000,000 milligrams. At 5 milligrams per CF bulb, this is equivalent to 870 million CF bulbs. If all of these ended up being disposed of by incineration (sending the CFs' mercury into the atmosphere) we'd come about even in total mercury emitted at that energy savings level.
Of course, it's hard to say if the 10% emission reduction could really be achieved. I certainly don't have time to account for all those variables. However, it looks like the folks at energystar.gov have done the work. They claim that there is a net mercury emission savings due to the power savings of about 10 milligrams. (Or five milligrams, I'd say, if the CF is not properly disposed at its end-of-life.)
On the whole, so long as we still use a lot of coal for power, it looks like CFs are probably a good tradeoff.
(Also, for what it's worth, TFA is quite the hatchet job. It's either not written from anything like a neutral POV or the author failed to do his homework, I found all my numbers in five minutes with three google searches. I also found, in the energystar pdf, the recommended method for disposing of a broken CF. It involves a broom, a ziploc, and a damp paper towel... materials which should cost a good deal less than $2000 in most cases.)
"So ... he was giving it thorough testing."
:-)
Careful, at that kinda RPM it might be difficult to hold onto the straw you've grasped.
"You know damned well that if he asked the school administration or the IT department, they would blindly and ignorantly just give him a template "no" with absolutely no basis whatsoever for it."
What I know damned well is that it wasn't his system.
It is customary for pen-testers who wish to be known as "good guys" to ask permisssion of their targets. Mr. Lamo is a notable exception, but he ended up paying a rather steep price for the Pure pursuit of his Art. So too is Mr. Maass paying such a price. That price is a direct and predictable result of unauthorized pen-testing.
Although it is usually easier to ask forgiveness than permission, sometimes forgiveness is much harder to actually get. If one believes some system managers think their data is so valuable, and their security is so fragile, that they are unwilling to grant a student pen-testing authority, why ever would one also think they'd be forgiving about an unauthorized pen-test that makes them look bad?
Mind you, I'm not saying the UP system managers were wise or justified or reasonable in their response. I'm just saying that their response was predictable. If you want to play white-hat go right ahead. But either do it right, with asking (and actually getting) permission and the whole nine yards, or be prepared to face the maximum consequences the target can throw back at you.
Many of the arguments we use to - justly - defend security researchers seem like they may not apply in this case.
* He used the software to bypass the security check for seven months
* He distributed the software to several other students and a professor
* He did not disclose the vulnerability to the vendor before releasing his exploit
* He did not ask permission
Now, this is not to say that the University's use of CCA is wise or it's reaction was reasonably proportionate to the damage done. (If the damage and the policy violation is as minimal as the article claims, a 1-year suspension is insane.) But Mr. Maass did not do a good job of covering his ass, either.
Let this be a lesson to the next guy.
It might be nice for them to undo various bits of previous silliness, such as the Patriot Act, the Patent system, tobacco subsidies... the list goes on.
Gridlock prevents this, too.
"[...] it's simply tyranny by the minority, with the government held hostage to the desires of any small group willing to riot."
Whereas in the United States, we are much more enlightened. Here the government is held hostage to the desires of any small group willing to spend a great deal of money on lobbyists.
"Apparently you missed the part where I made specific reference to the Sedition Act?"
Yep! Oops.
"[...] he never deported anyone under the Alien Acts"
As I recall, there was one person he was very keen on deporting - I don't remember his name, but he was an Irishman who had worked for Franklin's grandson - but he never did catch the fellow before his term was up. Many fled rather than risk deportation as well. Still, that's true.
Nevertheless, no matter how antipartisan Adams claimed to be, he declined to veto the Sedition Act, which had a number of plainly partisan features. Cheif among them, it did not apply to criticisms of the Vice President -who happened to be Jefferson, of the opposing party - and it was designed from the start to expire at the end of Adams' term. His Administration went on to use this partisan tool to arrest and prosecute quite a few people, including several newspapermen and a sitting Congressman. Had he been truly antipartisan, he would have refused to take up such a tool.
Anyway, we're well off-topic so I'l stop here. History has debated the sins of these people more thoroughly than I intend to repeat with you - our readers can make their own judgements from less faillable sources. I simply wanted to point out that Adams himself had a role in the use of government power to suppress his opponents; it wasn't just his supporters, as you seemed - intentionally or not - to be implying.
Partly we overthrew Mossadegh to stall off the Soviets. Partly we did it because British Petroleum persuaded Winston Churchill to call his old pal Ike and ask for help.
But whatever the reasons we did it, we earned the enmity of the Iranian people by doing so. We can look back now and say "we did it because we had to", and maybe that's true. But if we were really honest with ourselves, we would also add "... even though it was completely against our values and was of very dubious morality."
A really courageous President would face this forthrightly. He would record an address to the Iranian people stating plainly that overthrowing their democratically-elected leader was contrary to our values but that we did in in pursuit of a larger struggle against the Soviets; that we realize that US actions hurt the Iranian people, and that while we felt it was necessary at the time we are regretful of the harm it caused them. Further, we wish to put the past injuries the two nations have done one another behind us, to normalize relations, and perhaps one day to beome friends.
Alas, doing this now - after Iraq became a debacle - may look like a sign of weakness, rather than of magnanimous strength. It should have been done while Khatami was President of Iran, for he would have welcomed such a move and it would have considerably strengthened the influence of Iran's moderates; perhaps winning us an ally in the region.
But we blew our chance. I doubt we'll get another so good.
Whereas Adams merely jailed or deported his opponents without trial, while gangs of his supporters smashed up rival presses and beat the pressmen.
It was a complicated time, and both sides behaved in ways that today would be considered outrageous or criminal. Still, in the main I think Adams - my ancestor - and his supporters were guilty of the greater sins.
"It's an interesting play because the Dems do have enough votes to impeach Cheney -- but the Senate would never find him guilty by a 2/3rd majority. This is of course the same brilliant strategy that the dems have been using for the last 12 years [...]"
It's worth noting that Mr. Kucinich ain't exactly part of the Democratic leadership. He's as far off the Democratic reservation as Ron Paul is off the Republican reservation. Whether this reflects prudence or cowardice among the leadership is left as an exercise for the reader.
"Finally, does Kucinich this this will help him get elected President?"
He's playing to his national base, which is solidly anti-war* and pro-impeachment. This action may not be sufficient for him to win the Presidency, but it is necessary for him to do this to have any chance at all.
[*: It's worth noting also that Kucinich has been against this war right from the start. And if I recall correctly, he's one of a very, very small number of people to have voted against the mis-named patriot act.]
"And there's nothing wrong with that. Isn't it, ultimately, about choice? Right?"
I got the impression that the article was discussing the server-side requirement for IE, not the user's voluntary browser selection. If you like IE, good on you.
But if, as you say, it's ultimately about choice, the article is pointing out how odd it is that people running websites would still design new sites demanding one particular browser.
If you can afford a commercial solution, TimeClockPlus is excellent.
While it's true that 802.11a has a shorter range, it's still more than adequate for almost any home application.
I just know that The BOFH is going to be getting one of these systems installed soon. Only his system will occasionally reduce the oxygen levels much further than is strictly necessary for fire protection.