I can't say how much Enterprise sucks, I've been too busy watching the DS9 DVDs and forgetting to watch Enterprise... but from what I hear from friends rants, yes.
From what I've heard, They're just flailing in the script-room, pulling plotlines out of nowhere...and even plotlines that don't make sense. I'll admit, Voyager sure wasn't TNG-2nd season, but it wasn't the last season of TOS either. There were some good parts and some bad parts.
LaVar has probably got a pretty good idea that it should be shelved (or at least shoved in the frezer for a while). Let the hubub over "Berman killed Star Trek" die, spend that time fleshing out something more cereberal (or at least philosophic) if they even bother to make another series: they've almost run out of concepts!
TOS: Exploration in an (mostly) unknown Galaxy
TNG: More exploration, but a more stable location
DS9: Sitting in the middle of a Mexican Standoff, followed with Exploration of a new section of the Galaxy
VGR: Lost in Space, and all of the above
Ent: A rehash of the basic idea of TOS
I say Shelve it for 5 years and see if anyone's come up with anything interesting by then
Greetings all. So far all the information that has been presented here has been useful. That's good. But I think we've all overlooked one other issue with this electronic vote system: immunity & privacy.
While in the United States, you're not scared of the currently 'lawfully-elected' dictator shooting you because you didn't vote for him in the election, it's still considered to be a sacrosanct 'right' that you and only you know exactly how you voted. You can tell the exit-pollers anything you want, but voting itself is anonymous.
My state recently obtained "anti-Florida" electronic voting machined (ie, touch-screen) even though we had been using push-button electronic machines for 15+ years (Diebold, btw). These new touch-screen machines (I didn't bother to check manufacturer, hindsight is 20-20) were 'unique' in my mind because of one of the features they had: Smart-cards.
The process I used to vote using these machines is as follows:
1) State your name to the represenative of the County Clerk. (No identification is required, but that's a different issue entirely)
2) Take a form that has your Name, Address, and SSN on it to a second clerk in the voting room. They enter your information onto a computer terminal connected to the County Voter Registration Database (somehow). This is to verify that you are indeed registered to vote in this county. They call out a number (I'm assuming a voter number, but it uniquely identifies you).
3) Recieve a smart-card which just downloaded something from the terminal used to check voter-numbers.
4) Insert smart-card into voting machine.
5) Select from presented options.
6) Save your vote onto the smart-card.
7) Give this smart-card back to the clerk and go about your business.
Now... What here seems like a vote-tracking system to you? The voting terminals were all connected back to something via Ethernet, and my votes were saved off-device. Now, I talked with a friend of mine who says you can get smart-cards to cough up their information, without encryption, if you do something right. Steal a crate of those cards (or loose them, as is oft in my state) and the information recorded on them (most likely voter number and votes cast) and bam! You know that I voted against Joe Schmoe.
Like I said earlier, in the US, this isn't a big problem, killing your opposition isn't smiled upon... but what about imprisoning them under the Patriot Act?(more info: read about the Alien and Sedition Acts...Congress overturned those, haven't touched PATRIOT)
I spoke with a poll-worker about this issue (vote-tracking, not getting oppressed) at the recent election (using the traditional voting machines, I might add), and she expressed concern as well, stating "You seem to have a different perspective on this, probably because you are more familliar with the technology". Meaning? The county clerks have no idea what they're implementing, just that they're implementing an electronic system, which obviously can't cause hanging-chads...
Will the intelegencia ever be consulted, or are we doomed to be legislated and regulated by politicians who don't have time to learn about a subject? Sinclair Lewis once wrote a book entitled "It Can't Happen Here", but if this continues unchecked, it just might.
Well I'd be as lost as our questioner here too, if I didn't decide to do a report on the Free Software Foundation (creators of GNU/Linux and the GNU Public License...and now the GNU Free Documentation License!!) for school and discover that they made a "GPL" for just this sort of thing!! So yes, there is A license that you're looking for...
So, without further ado, click the link for the Free Software Foundation's GNU Free Documentation License!!!!
(My first post, tee hee!!)
Slashdot Mirror
From what I've heard, They're just flailing in the script-room, pulling plotlines out of nowhere...and even plotlines that don't make sense. I'll admit, Voyager sure wasn't TNG-2nd season, but it wasn't the last season of TOS either. There were some good parts and some bad parts.
LaVar has probably got a pretty good idea that it should be shelved (or at least shoved in the frezer for a while). Let the hubub over "Berman killed Star Trek" die, spend that time fleshing out something more cereberal (or at least philosophic) if they even bother to make another series: they've almost run out of concepts!
I say Shelve it for 5 years and see if anyone's come up with anything interesting by then
Greetings all. So far all the information that has been presented here has been useful. That's good. But I think we've all overlooked one other issue with this electronic vote system: immunity & privacy.
While in the United States, you're not scared of the currently 'lawfully-elected' dictator shooting you because you didn't vote for him in the election, it's still considered to be a sacrosanct 'right' that you and only you know exactly how you voted. You can tell the exit-pollers anything you want, but voting itself is anonymous.
My state recently obtained "anti-Florida" electronic voting machined (ie, touch-screen) even though we had been using push-button electronic machines for 15+ years (Diebold, btw). These new touch-screen machines (I didn't bother to check manufacturer, hindsight is 20-20) were 'unique' in my mind because of one of the features they had: Smart-cards.
The process I used to vote using these machines is as follows:
1) State your name to the represenative of the County Clerk. (No identification is required, but that's a different issue entirely)
2) Take a form that has your Name, Address, and SSN on it to a second clerk in the voting room. They enter your information onto a computer terminal connected to the County Voter Registration Database (somehow). This is to verify that you are indeed registered to vote in this county. They call out a number (I'm assuming a voter number, but it uniquely identifies you).
3) Recieve a smart-card which just downloaded something from the terminal used to check voter-numbers.
4) Insert smart-card into voting machine.
5) Select from presented options.
6) Save your vote onto the smart-card.
7) Give this smart-card back to the clerk and go about your business.
Now... What here seems like a vote-tracking system to you? The voting terminals were all connected back to something via Ethernet, and my votes were saved off-device. Now, I talked with a friend of mine who says you can get smart-cards to cough up their information, without encryption, if you do something right. Steal a crate of those cards (or loose them, as is oft in my state) and the information recorded on them (most likely voter number and votes cast) and bam! You know that I voted against Joe Schmoe.
Like I said earlier, in the US, this isn't a big problem, killing your opposition isn't smiled upon... but what about imprisoning them under the Patriot Act?(more info: read about the Alien and Sedition Acts...Congress overturned those, haven't touched PATRIOT)
I spoke with a poll-worker about this issue (vote-tracking, not getting oppressed) at the recent election (using the traditional voting machines, I might add), and she expressed concern as well, stating "You seem to have a different perspective on this, probably because you are more familliar with the technology". Meaning? The county clerks have no idea what they're implementing, just that they're implementing an electronic system, which obviously can't cause hanging-chads...
Will the intelegencia ever be consulted, or are we doomed to be legislated and regulated by politicians who don't have time to learn about a subject? Sinclair Lewis once wrote a book entitled "It Can't Happen Here", but if this continues unchecked, it just might.
May You Live in Interesting Times
BaronJ
Well I'd be as lost as our questioner here too, if I didn't decide to do a report on the Free Software Foundation (creators of GNU/Linux and the GNU Public License...and now the GNU Free Documentation License!!) for school and discover that they made a "GPL" for just this sort of thing!! So yes, there is A license that you're looking for... So, without further ado, click the link for the Free Software Foundation's GNU Free Documentation License!!!! (My first post, tee hee!!)