Something it didn't say
on
H2G2 Film Website
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The button first said "please do not push this button"; upon pushing it, I expected the word "again" to be appended. Instead, I got "YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED".
It's already established that the machines are "not secure". Because of requirements in the voting system, you must have as much security as you can garner.
So what is with these ignoramuses figuring that, back in the days of the punch cards, WE (the people who sat there all day so you can get off your sorry butts and vote) WOULDN'T ACTUALLY GET OFF OUR BUTTS AND ASSIST THE VOTER WITH THEIR BALLOT! Yes, kids, that's right, we go in there and help people vote if they need help! Blind? Ask them who to vote for and get a witness! Wheelchair? Have them bring their sample ballot and punch it, let them do a comparison to make sure! No arms? Same thing!
So disabled, QED, is no excuse for this, as there are bits in the California election code that provide for assistance. The point here is that we were instructed to do whatever it took to help them vote, with the understanding that their vote does not leave our brains or the collection box, so if you are a disabled voter in some way, we helped. Besides, the feds would shoot down California on ADA violations if we didn't.
You know, I'm seeing a lot of talk about how this shows that those Windows-has-lower-TCO adverts are baloney.
So if we're all here high and mighty that Linux Will Solve World Hunger because of this, why aren't we doing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) we can to solve this? It is certainly true that almost everything has been portedtoLinux, but many applications have yet to appear on places like Sourceforge and Freshmeat. Sure, yeah, I've started Yenta on sourceforge as a replacement for Act! or Goldmine, but it was only recently started - with little useable code to speak of.
(Yes, I need help with that project.)
Point to this rant is that we still have a way to go before it becomes acceptable to just drop Windows in favor of Linux, but it is also up to us to make sure that if, God forbid, a worm or series of them comes out, we can patch in a hurry.
Can't say one way or another (IANAFA), but if it's any indication, their stock from early February to right about now has dropped from around $13ish to $6.23 (at 12:57 PDT) - which tells me that people think they're going to be screwed with curare tipped wrought iron fence and no lube.
This news alone is just more ammo against SCO, but little will be done with this news alone. Aside from the fact that they have laid off ten percent of their staff, nothing much has happened anyway aside from the usual doggerel of them saying that Linux is for all intents illegal.
Besides, the downward trend has been going for some time - they were hovering around $7 last week, now they've dropped a dollar since. So one day's stock variations is not going to make or break somebody in the general sense.
Once I was working for a pharmaceuticals distributor of an undisclosed location. I happened to watch my supervisor type her password into the mainframe.
Evidently Kevin learned his lesson - he openly admits to having been a criminal it seems, and besides, what better to catch a criminal than with somebody who really knows how they think?
The whole case reeks of Chutzpah. In order to sue the antispam community for defamation, merely suing Spamcop as a means is not going to be the answer. He has to sue people who don't want spam.
Now this is a little like Kroger suing the Safeway Corporation because Safeway doesn't sell Kroger branded groceries.
Weird comparison, I know, but think of it. If you go into whatever Safeway Corp run supermarket in your area, it is expected that you are going to buy (say) Safeway Select brand root beer, and not Kroger. To do otherwise is a conflict of interest, and besides, the shopper just might like Safeway's brand of root beer over Kroger's.
Likewise, if one (eg, me) is on Spamcop's system, it is generally assumed by their defined purpose in life that the user is, at the bare minimum, passively anti-spam, and therefore does not actually desire spam - so accordingly they will either delete or report it.
Hopefully I made this at least fairly translucent.
Not really ironic actually. Any computer can be used to spam - so by that rationale, IBM makes such hardware, eRacks and Penguin Computing make and/or sell such hardware, and Linux and Windows are the de facto standard means to spam.
I like this as a concept. Hell, send a whole armada of these repair bots, and just use something on the lines of VR to repair things. I mean, all this tech from scifi movies might just be something feasible for the purpose, for a fraction of the cost - and the running theory I have is that you only have to send up the fleet once.
The only problem I forsee is that of supplies. Fuel, equipment, parts, that sort of thing. I mean, if you stage everything at another substation out in orbit, that's great, but occasionally you need to send a part up there. Suppose you could send the shuttle or a Soyuz or something up and stock the yard. Hell, if the space plane project ever gets completed, just send it up, pop it out, re-enter - easy peasy.
That, and is my idea really that feasible? I'm almost certain that once in a great while you'll have to bring the equipment down from orbit to give it a once over maintenance - or send someone up for the same purpose, thus cutting that cost in half. Remember, much of this stuff that I just came up with will spend the majority of its life in orbit, much like the sattelites littering our exosphere and higher.
In watching the whole debacle going on with SCO, it concerns me that, in the end, beating SCO back down with the brickbat of the law has been little more than an uninteresting problem. Enough resource applied to the problem and it just kind of goes away.
If I remember correctly, while X10 has a really cool product, it was by doing annoying adverts that caused them to falter. So then, what is there to cause marketing types to believe that by circumventing what is for all intents a "do not spam" measure they will sell more of their clients' wares?
This interview with Mr. Valenti has been rated "R" for explicit language. Nobody under 17 will be permitted to read this without an accompanying adult. Reader discretion is advised.
Sylpheed, Pan, html-helper-mode.el, Opera (OK, it's not FOSS, so what?), Firefox, chkrootkit, the Red Carpet setup, OOo, Bittorrent, sclj, and my ~/bin directory.
When is it that Sprint is going to educate and "empower" their phone operators to cut off the scandalous calls? This kind of action, I feel, would have a more daunting effect on 419 trollers.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, well.
I only ask because this sounds like something I can *possibly* dig up off of Everything2.
I should point out that Freecache is in beta mode. By coincidence, this posting on Slashdot here is an interesting way of working out bugs.
Until May 20, Spamcop just refuses ALL mail from the source as a "recognized spammer" - or just for "legal reasons".
Now excuse me while I prime up a vein for my afternoon fix of caffeine.
I resemble that remark, mister! =)
See my rant below. In short, you are, and if you don't have one, one of the people working the precinct are obligated to get up and assist you.
So what is with these ignoramuses figuring that, back in the days of the punch cards, WE (the people who sat there all day so you can get off your sorry butts and vote) WOULDN'T ACTUALLY GET OFF OUR BUTTS AND ASSIST THE VOTER WITH THEIR BALLOT! Yes, kids, that's right, we go in there and help people vote if they need help! Blind? Ask them who to vote for and get a witness! Wheelchair? Have them bring their sample ballot and punch it, let them do a comparison to make sure! No arms? Same thing!
So disabled, QED, is no excuse for this, as there are bits in the California election code that provide for assistance. The point here is that we were instructed to do whatever it took to help them vote, with the understanding that their vote does not leave our brains or the collection box, so if you are a disabled voter in some way, we helped. Besides, the feds would shoot down California on ADA violations if we didn't.
So if we're all here high and mighty that Linux Will Solve World Hunger because of this, why aren't we doing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) we can to solve this? It is certainly true that almost everything has been ported to Linux, but many applications have yet to appear on places like Sourceforge and Freshmeat. Sure, yeah, I've started Yenta on sourceforge as a replacement for Act! or Goldmine, but it was only recently started - with little useable code to speak of.
(Yes, I need help with that project.)
Point to this rant is that we still have a way to go before it becomes acceptable to just drop Windows in favor of Linux, but it is also up to us to make sure that if, God forbid, a worm or series of them comes out, we can patch in a hurry.
Can't say one way or another (IANAFA), but if it's any indication, their stock from early February to right about now has dropped from around $13ish to $6.23 (at 12:57 PDT) - which tells me that people think they're going to be screwed with curare tipped wrought iron fence and no lube.
Besides, the downward trend has been going for some time - they were hovering around $7 last week, now they've dropped a dollar since. So one day's stock variations is not going to make or break somebody in the general sense.
It was APPLE2.
Evidently Kevin learned his lesson - he openly admits to having been a criminal it seems, and besides, what better to catch a criminal than with somebody who really knows how they think?
Now this is a little like Kroger suing the Safeway Corporation because Safeway doesn't sell Kroger branded groceries.
Weird comparison, I know, but think of it. If you go into whatever Safeway Corp run supermarket in your area, it is expected that you are going to buy (say) Safeway Select brand root beer, and not Kroger. To do otherwise is a conflict of interest, and besides, the shopper just might like Safeway's brand of root beer over Kroger's.
Likewise, if one (eg, me) is on Spamcop's system, it is generally assumed by their defined purpose in life that the user is, at the bare minimum, passively anti-spam, and therefore does not actually desire spam - so accordingly they will either delete or report it.
Hopefully I made this at least fairly translucent.
Not really ironic actually. Any computer can be used to spam - so by that rationale, IBM makes such hardware, eRacks and Penguin Computing make and/or sell such hardware, and Linux and Windows are the de facto standard means to spam.
I'm nominatin' this jackass for a Stella Award.
The eye!
The only problem I forsee is that of supplies. Fuel, equipment, parts, that sort of thing. I mean, if you stage everything at another substation out in orbit, that's great, but occasionally you need to send a part up there. Suppose you could send the shuttle or a Soyuz or something up and stock the yard. Hell, if the space plane project ever gets completed, just send it up, pop it out, re-enter - easy peasy. That, and is my idea really that feasible? I'm almost certain that once in a great while you'll have to bring the equipment down from orbit to give it a once over maintenance - or send someone up for the same purpose, thus cutting that cost in half. Remember, much of this stuff that I just came up with will spend the majority of its life in orbit, much like the sattelites littering our exosphere and higher.
After all the false starts, it's good to see Google going balls up for the IPO. Good luck, guys, hope it does you well.
In watching the whole debacle going on with SCO, it concerns me that, in the end, beating SCO back down with the brickbat of the law has been little more than an uninteresting problem. Enough resource applied to the problem and it just kind of goes away.
If I remember correctly, while X10 has a really cool product, it was by doing annoying adverts that caused them to falter. So then, what is there to cause marketing types to believe that by circumventing what is for all intents a "do not spam" measure they will sell more of their clients' wares?
This interview with Mr. Valenti has been rated "R" for explicit language. Nobody under 17 will be permitted to read this without an accompanying adult. Reader discretion is advised.
Sylpheed, Pan, html-helper-mode.el, Opera (OK, it's not FOSS, so what?), Firefox, chkrootkit, the Red Carpet setup, OOo, Bittorrent, sclj, and my ~/bin directory.
At time of this posting, SCOX is down forty cents at $7.05/share.
When is it that Sprint is going to educate and "empower" their phone operators to cut off the scandalous calls? This kind of action, I feel, would have a more daunting effect on 419 trollers.