I am not aware of serious problems in any US election. Unless "Al Gore didn't win" is a "serious problem". The votes were counted. Gore lost. He sued. They were recounted. He lost. He sued. Repeat until it got tiring.
Noone illegally shutdown polls last election. Though, as I recall, one area kept its polls open illegally past the specified closing time - the only Democratic stronghold in a largely Republican state. Federal Court had to order those polls closed, though no effort was made to undo the illegally cast votes.
However, I expect that all the "improved" electronic voting machines will produce "serious problems" in this election. Specifically, they will undermine democracy by allowing the losers (whoever they happen to be - I think it is by no means clear yet) to claim that the "election was stolen". Claims like that tend to do bad things for democracy.
I disagree that tampering with vote validation si a wasted effort. If you can make vote fraud look more likely in a few key districts, then you can produce results like 2000 - where one party is swearing up and down that the other party stole the election.
A democracy cannot survive unless pretty much everyone trusts the process. If you set up a system that can be monkeyed with in a big way, you have a fundamental problem. If you set up a system where the APPEARANCE that it can be monkeyed with is just as big a problem.
Is there a better way than the traditional anonymous ballot? I can't say "no", since there is always the chance that some bright person could come up with something really novel. But noone has yet.
Let's try this, then. The election in your district is a close one. Really close. So the strong-arm types from one party or the other (or any interested third parties) start offering $100 to re-vote their way.
Or are you assuming that the second "vote" doesn't do anything, or reveal anything? If so, what's the point? If the "second vote" counts, then you can buy votes with it, if needed. If the system will verify to the user that his "second vote" matches his first, it can be used to coerce the voter.
I don't think there is any way to do non-anonymous voting fairly. It will be abused WAY more than anonymous voting ever was.
That said, there should be some way to allow any voter to verify the software of a voting machine, if such is used. Which is to say, open-source software and generic hardware must be used in construction of the voting machines. And an option to get an MD5 checksum of the software actually running on the voting machine should be available to every voter.
Even better, we can print up ballots ahead of time, and the people can mark/punch/whatever them in accordance with the directions conveniently provided at the voting place, and deposit them in a ballot box.
Hmm, Canada have any in their last election? The UK? France? Germany? No?
International monitors do not make for fair election practices. Bringing a suit against the Election Laws when you lose does, however, give you UNFAIR election practices.
We don't need electronic balloting. Some states have had it a long time, and it works fine. Some are rushing to get into it because of the hysteria during the last election. Therein lies the issue.
You set in place a challenge system beforehand so if there's an issue you're not ad-libbing.
Florida had that last time.
Gore tried to bypass the system. This led to a series of court decisions, finally decided by the US Supremes, that reduced to "use the pre-existing system for challenges".
Democrats to this day believe the election was "stolen".
A challenge system is absolutely necessary to ensure proper balloting. It must, however, be carved in stone - noone, not the Legislature, nor the courts, and especially not the candidates should be allowed to mess with it during an election. Once the election is over, by all means, work on "better" ways for the NEXT election, if it makes you feel better.
My friend, let me enlighten you. Everyone who has had an accident while using a mobile phone has thought exactly the same thing: that they were able to chat (and worse, SMS!!) on their phone and drive quite safely... right up until the point where they killed either themselves or someone else. Self-perceptions of risk are never reliable, and especially not in situations like this where other people get killed.
And everyone who had an accident while NOT using a mobile phone has thought exactly the same thing. Your point is?
Not at all! Even under the most pessimistic assumption, that none of the money saved gets redirected to unmanned space flight, general technological progress in 20 years will give manned flight a huge advantage when it restarts.
Nonsense! Why should technology move in a direction useful to manned spaceflight when there is no manned spaceflight being done? It's not like satellite launches really strain the operating envelope of 30 year old boosters.
Yes, the deep-space probes are essentially pure science (which is still more of a benefit than any unique contributions of the Shuttle).
I'll bite. What is the benefit? Not saying the shuttle has been a benefit. It could have been, but we decided four was enough, and thus guaranteed we'd get nothing worthwhile for our money and effort. But what have we gained from the "pure science" of the space probes? For that matter, what did we gain from discovering the Van Allen Belts that Professor van Allen is so proud of?
However, unmanned space flight in general has provided quite a bit of value through satellites. Committing to, e.g., keeping Hubble running and exploring planets with robotic probes could provide quite a bit of value to robotics.
Satellites are worthwhile. At least the ones looking back earthside. Keeping the Hubble running is a waste of time and effort. We can dedicate the money it would cost to maintain the Hubble to robotics research without bothering with actually maintaining the Hubble. Same for deepspace probes in general - don't bother with launching them, spend the money on robotics research. That way you'd have MORE money for your robotics research (the cost of the launch itself adds a few million).
No. The space shuttle alone has done more than 100.
Too right, should have checked before making an off the cuff guesstimate. 113 shuttle flights over 23 years, according to NASA. Add in 15 Apollo flights (including Skylab-related and apollo-soyuz), 10 Gemini, & 6 Mercury. That's 144 total flights. Still probably fewer than the number of airplane flights in 1910 alone. If you add in Apollo 1 (which burned on the pad), 145 flights, 3 losses. Better than the aerial flight record in 1910, still.
Space exploration without science is boring
Space exploration WITH science is boring! Mars Rovers may be neato-keen toys, but the fascination wore off about five minutes after the first one rolled out. This Mercury mission is interesting only for the orbital gymnastics it will require, and the engineering. Even so, I'll read the headlines of whatever news articles it'll generate, and (faintly possibly) one article on it.
SpaceShipOne is interesting. Sure, it won't make orbit. Might be an intermediate stage for something that will make orbit someday, might not. But it's interesting in a way that a spaceprobe to Pluto could never be.
But, to extend the arguement, maybe most submarines are an equal waste of money as the space program. After all, they do nothing but sit around and wait to shoot ICBMs in WWIII, which probably will never ever happen.
If it never happens, it'll be because of the submarines. Being unable to stop the other fellow from ruining you is a powerful disincentive (and I don't even like MAD, but there's no doubt it has worked).
That said, you sound like the people in 1913, who said that a World War could never happen, because it would bankrupt everyone. Or the ones later who said that another world war was impossible.
The question isn't "will there be another world war?", it is "when will the next world war be?" Not soon, in my opinion. But I'd be surprised if it held off another 50 years.
(That's a classical fallacy- comparing absolute numbers instead of relative)
Actually, I didn't intend to suggest anything other than the fact that we'd lost two nuke-boats.
That said, SAFE surface transportation is obviously harder than intercontinental flight. BY almost every measure. Most likely due to the training requirements for drivers (that is, minimal).
Alas, spaceflight is rare enough that it is not really meaningful to look at it statistically at all. Around 100 manned flights to date, I think. Fewer total than the airplanes flown in 1910. Probably lower than the number of airplane flights for the first three years of flight. How many crashes did we have in the first three years of flight? off the top of my head, I don't know. But the first crash was on the first day of flight, so likely more than two.
I didn't say "shuttle". The word was "manned spacecraft"
The Apollo was the only manned spacecraft that travelled more than about 500km from the ground. And 40,000 Km isn't correct for it, either. 400,000, perhaps, worst case.
Personally, I don't think of space as a place to do science. It's a place to ignore or to explore/exploit. Part of exploration is science, but the science is of minimal value without the rest of the exploration/exploitation.
Submarines never have to travel more than 5 km away from a position where they can shut down, drift, and let the crew wait a week for rescue.
No. Submarines under the Ice can't do that. I should point out we've lost the same number of nuclear submarines as we have shuttles. And far more diesel boats. And yet we've never felt the urge to stop using our submarines for a couple years at a time because of one lousy accident.
Existing manned spaceships go more than 40,000 km distant from any rescue. Any proposed interplanetary rocket would need to survive 3,000,000,000 km from recover
Again, no. A shuttle is within 300 km of the ground (as the submarine is within 5km of the surface in your earlier example). A shuttle will take longer to reach the ground in an emergency than a sub to reach the surface, but a shuttle can reach ground way quicker than a sub under the Ice.
In addition, a spacecraft going to Mars will NOT be 3,000,000,000 km from Earth at any point. It won't even be that far following its own flightpath.
A spacecraft going to Mars would have to be repairable. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. Except to people opposed to manned spaceflight. "the ISS crew isn't doing any science, they're just barely keeping the station habitable!" Make it bigger. It doesn't get more complicated just because it is bigger. One guy (for example) is needed to maintain the lifesupport. If the lifesupport supports one guy, he does nothing but maintain it. If it supports 20 guys, 19 guys have time for other things.
A base on the moon would significantly lower the cost of a Mars mission, if only because it takes less reaction mass to go from the moon to Mars than it does from the Earth to Mars. So we can afford more useful payload, like tools, and trained men to use them.
Can you think of a single politician in a place of power (majority in the House or Senate, Pres, VP) who has ever advocated "open government". That seems to be something that is the exclusive province of the party that is out of power.
It costs a fortune because we design an extremely complex device, and build FOUR of them!
Put the shuttle on an assembly line, and amortize the R&D costs over 100 shuttles, and you'd find it a whole bunch cheaper per.
A submarine is not a spaceship. They have different issues. But they overlap in a few places. Like lifesupport - no air down there but what we make, no fresh water either, no food but what we bring.
And you make a big deal about the vibration levels endured by spacecraft components. Try this on for size - design a spaceship that is quieter than ambient air during atmospheric operations.
What? That's an unreasonable requirement? Some submarines are quiet enough that you spot them by listening for the dead spot in the water.
As I said, they're different. One isn't more complex than the other, they're just different.
And spacecraft are harder to make than sailing ships. I suggest, however, that they aren't mind-numbingly more complicated than a big sailing ship. Complicated devices have been around a long time.
ets do a short course: the Earth is the only place in this solar system we can live unaided.
Most of Earth can't be lived on unaided by humans. We developed new things to allow us to go places we'd never gone, and do new things. Like boats, spears, clothing, and fire.
On a more recent scale, southern California would be largely desert without the irrigation we do, the rivers we redirect, the power we generate.
Yah, the Solar System is pretty barren right now. Might even stay that way. But does anyone really believe we can spend the next 1000 years sitting at home, then build a starship? Not a chance! You start with baby steps. We need to learn to live offworld, and on worlds that aren't especially friendly to us, if only because most of them won't be. We may even need to adapt ourselves to microgravity - won't know till we go out there and spend some time.
We'll learn to reach the stars by and by, but only if we keep taking those baby-steps now...
There is no way that with today's technology, any known planets other than Earth could be made even as inhabitable as a post-asteroid or post-nuclear Earth.
Possibly true. Are your chances of surviving an asteroid falling to Earth better if you are (a) on Earth when it falls, or (b) on Mars when it falls on Earth?
For better or for worse, we'll be stuck with Earth for the next couple of decades. The last time human space flight has accomplished anything significant was some 35 years ago. I think we should suspend human space flight for the next 20 years or so and invest the money saved into unmanned flight.
Waiting 20 years would just add 20 years to the period we'll be stuck on Earth.
And, if we choose to give up on manned spaceflight, why bother with unmanned flight? Unmanned probes have essentially no value to humanity. Knowing more about Saturn's moons does nothing for people on Earth. Ditto Mercury. Ooh, we might learn more about the origin of the Universe! Who really cares?
Go through the deep-space probes, and find ONE thing that they've learned that has had an effect on normal people on this planet. I'm curious....
Ask yourself this: Considering it will cost billions to send people to the moon versus the millions it cost sending unmanned flights, exactly what scientific experiment could those people do that an unmanned flight could not do?
Hmm, is it possible there is more to space than science?
How about a place to keep our industry that is REALLY nimby?
And a second place to live, in case something bad happens to the first? One dinosaur killer falling out of the sky, and humanity is toast. People on Mars and Luna means it takes at least three. People on a planet around Alpha Centauri would survive the inevitable death of our sun. Etc, etc, etc.
More plausible explanation would be starving, escaping a glacier or some other first class need. IMHO it seems that "idylic hunter-gatherer lifestyle" isn't that idylic.
Population pressure surely played a factor. Glaciers didn't. There weren't any in Africa.
Being a hunter gatherer doesn't look idyllic from here. How did it look to the people 300,000 years ago? The ones who couldn't conceive of another lifestyle?
Columbus could be fairly sure to encounter habitable land (in fact, he wanted to reach Japan and China;
True enough, he claimed to be going for China or Japan. Too bad he hit that big rock in the middle. However, if the big rock hadn't been there, he wouldn't have reached CHina or Japan. He'd have died along with his crew of lack of fresh water or food long before he could go the extra 8000 miles.
Truth is, he didn't bring sufficient supplies to reach the Far East. Previous voyages to the Far East went around Africa, where land (and food and water) were always close at hand, and frequent stops were possible. Columbus tried something new - head out into the open ocean with enough supplies for the trip. And lucky for him that rock was in the way, since he guessed wrong on the supplies.
Slashdot Mirror
Noone illegally shutdown polls last election. Though, as I recall, one area kept its polls open illegally past the specified closing time - the only Democratic stronghold in a largely Republican state. Federal Court had to order those polls closed, though no effort was made to undo the illegally cast votes.
However, I expect that all the "improved" electronic voting machines will produce "serious problems" in this election. Specifically, they will undermine democracy by allowing the losers (whoever they happen to be - I think it is by no means clear yet) to claim that the "election was stolen". Claims like that tend to do bad things for democracy.
I disagree that tampering with vote validation si a wasted effort. If you can make vote fraud look more likely in a few key districts, then you can produce results like 2000 - where one party is swearing up and down that the other party stole the election.
A democracy cannot survive unless pretty much everyone trusts the process. If you set up a system that can be monkeyed with in a big way, you have a fundamental problem. If you set up a system where the APPEARANCE that it can be monkeyed with is just as big a problem.
Is there a better way than the traditional anonymous ballot? I can't say "no", since there is always the chance that some bright person could come up with something really novel. But noone has yet.
Or are you assuming that the second "vote" doesn't do anything, or reveal anything? If so, what's the point? If the "second vote" counts, then you can buy votes with it, if needed. If the system will verify to the user that his "second vote" matches his first, it can be used to coerce the voter.
I don't think there is any way to do non-anonymous voting fairly. It will be abused WAY more than anonymous voting ever was.
That said, there should be some way to allow any voter to verify the software of a voting machine, if such is used. Which is to say, open-source software and generic hardware must be used in construction of the voting machines. And an option to get an MD5 checksum of the software actually running on the voting machine should be available to every voter.
"You need to prove you voted to take time off from work to vote."
"How?"
"Show me your voting record"
"What if I forget my passphrase"
"Then I'll have no proof you voted. By the way, you've been absent a lot this year. One more, and I'll have to fire you"
Even better, we can print up ballots ahead of time, and the people can mark/punch/whatever them in accordance with the directions conveniently provided at the voting place, and deposit them in a ballot box.
International monitors do not make for fair election practices. Bringing a suit against the Election Laws when you lose does, however, give you UNFAIR election practices.
We don't need electronic balloting. Some states have had it a long time, and it works fine. Some are rushing to get into it because of the hysteria during the last election. Therein lies the issue.
All of the previous arguments against receipts apply as well to this system.
Florida had that last time.
Gore tried to bypass the system. This led to a series of court decisions, finally decided by the US Supremes, that reduced to "use the pre-existing system for challenges".
Democrats to this day believe the election was "stolen".
A challenge system is absolutely necessary to ensure proper balloting. It must, however, be carved in stone - noone, not the Legislature, nor the courts, and especially not the candidates should be allowed to mess with it during an election. Once the election is over, by all means, work on "better" ways for the NEXT election, if it makes you feel better.
Canada does, because its teams are members of the AL/NL. The others don't, because they're not.
and Italy, Japan, most of Latin America.
And everyone who had an accident while NOT using a mobile phone has thought exactly the same thing. Your point is?
Nonsense! Why should technology move in a direction useful to manned spaceflight when there is no manned spaceflight being done? It's not like satellite launches really strain the operating envelope of 30 year old boosters.
Yes, the deep-space probes are essentially pure science (which is still more of a benefit than any unique contributions of the Shuttle).
I'll bite. What is the benefit? Not saying the shuttle has been a benefit. It could have been, but we decided four was enough, and thus guaranteed we'd get nothing worthwhile for our money and effort. But what have we gained from the "pure science" of the space probes? For that matter, what did we gain from discovering the Van Allen Belts that Professor van Allen is so proud of?
However, unmanned space flight in general has provided quite a bit of value through satellites. Committing to, e.g., keeping Hubble running and exploring planets with robotic probes could provide quite a bit of value to robotics.
Satellites are worthwhile. At least the ones looking back earthside. Keeping the Hubble running is a waste of time and effort. We can dedicate the money it would cost to maintain the Hubble to robotics research without bothering with actually maintaining the Hubble. Same for deepspace probes in general - don't bother with launching them, spend the money on robotics research. That way you'd have MORE money for your robotics research (the cost of the launch itself adds a few million).
Too right, should have checked before making an off the cuff guesstimate. 113 shuttle flights over 23 years, according to NASA. Add in 15 Apollo flights (including Skylab-related and apollo-soyuz), 10 Gemini, & 6 Mercury. That's 144 total flights. Still probably fewer than the number of airplane flights in 1910 alone. If you add in Apollo 1 (which burned on the pad), 145 flights, 3 losses. Better than the aerial flight record in 1910, still.
Space exploration without science is boring
Space exploration WITH science is boring! Mars Rovers may be neato-keen toys, but the fascination wore off about five minutes after the first one rolled out. This Mercury mission is interesting only for the orbital gymnastics it will require, and the engineering. Even so, I'll read the headlines of whatever news articles it'll generate, and (faintly possibly) one article on it.
SpaceShipOne is interesting. Sure, it won't make orbit. Might be an intermediate stage for something that will make orbit someday, might not. But it's interesting in a way that a spaceprobe to Pluto could never be.
Be more specific. Name names. I can't think of any in the majority who advocated it.
If it never happens, it'll be because of the submarines. Being unable to stop the other fellow from ruining you is a powerful disincentive (and I don't even like MAD, but there's no doubt it has worked).
That said, you sound like the people in 1913, who said that a World War could never happen, because it would bankrupt everyone. Or the ones later who said that another world war was impossible.
The question isn't "will there be another world war?", it is "when will the next world war be?" Not soon, in my opinion. But I'd be surprised if it held off another 50 years.
Actually, I didn't intend to suggest anything other than the fact that we'd lost two nuke-boats.
That said, SAFE surface transportation is obviously harder than intercontinental flight. BY almost every measure. Most likely due to the training requirements for drivers (that is, minimal).
Alas, spaceflight is rare enough that it is not really meaningful to look at it statistically at all. Around 100 manned flights to date, I think. Fewer total than the airplanes flown in 1910. Probably lower than the number of airplane flights for the first three years of flight. How many crashes did we have in the first three years of flight? off the top of my head, I don't know. But the first crash was on the first day of flight, so likely more than two. I didn't say "shuttle". The word was "manned spacecraft"
The Apollo was the only manned spacecraft that travelled more than about 500km from the ground. And 40,000 Km isn't correct for it, either. 400,000, perhaps, worst case.
Personally, I don't think of space as a place to do science. It's a place to ignore or to explore/exploit. Part of exploration is science, but the science is of minimal value without the rest of the exploration/exploitation.
No. Submarines under the Ice can't do that. I should point out we've lost the same number of nuclear submarines as we have shuttles. And far more diesel boats. And yet we've never felt the urge to stop using our submarines for a couple years at a time because of one lousy accident. Existing manned spaceships go more than 40,000 km distant from any rescue. Any proposed interplanetary rocket would need to survive 3,000,000,000 km from recover
Again, no. A shuttle is within 300 km of the ground (as the submarine is within 5km of the surface in your earlier example). A shuttle will take longer to reach the ground in an emergency than a sub to reach the surface, but a shuttle can reach ground way quicker than a sub under the Ice.
In addition, a spacecraft going to Mars will NOT be 3,000,000,000 km from Earth at any point. It won't even be that far following its own flightpath.
A spacecraft going to Mars would have to be repairable. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. Except to people opposed to manned spaceflight. "the ISS crew isn't doing any science, they're just barely keeping the station habitable!" Make it bigger. It doesn't get more complicated just because it is bigger. One guy (for example) is needed to maintain the lifesupport. If the lifesupport supports one guy, he does nothing but maintain it. If it supports 20 guys, 19 guys have time for other things.
A base on the moon would significantly lower the cost of a Mars mission, if only because it takes less reaction mass to go from the moon to Mars than it does from the Earth to Mars. So we can afford more useful payload, like tools, and trained men to use them.
Can you think of a single politician in a place of power (majority in the House or Senate, Pres, VP) who has ever advocated "open government". That seems to be something that is the exclusive province of the party that is out of power.
Put the shuttle on an assembly line, and amortize the R&D costs over 100 shuttles, and you'd find it a whole bunch cheaper per.
A submarine is not a spaceship. They have different issues. But they overlap in a few places. Like lifesupport - no air down there but what we make, no fresh water either, no food but what we bring.
And you make a big deal about the vibration levels endured by spacecraft components. Try this on for size - design a spaceship that is quieter than ambient air during atmospheric operations.
What? That's an unreasonable requirement? Some submarines are quiet enough that you spot them by listening for the dead spot in the water.
As I said, they're different. One isn't more complex than the other, they're just different.
And spacecraft are harder to make than sailing ships. I suggest, however, that they aren't mind-numbingly more complicated than a big sailing ship. Complicated devices have been around a long time.
Most of Earth can't be lived on unaided by humans. We developed new things to allow us to go places we'd never gone, and do new things. Like boats, spears, clothing, and fire.
On a more recent scale, southern California would be largely desert without the irrigation we do, the rivers we redirect, the power we generate.
Yah, the Solar System is pretty barren right now. Might even stay that way. But does anyone really believe we can spend the next 1000 years sitting at home, then build a starship? Not a chance! You start with baby steps. We need to learn to live offworld, and on worlds that aren't especially friendly to us, if only because most of them won't be. We may even need to adapt ourselves to microgravity - won't know till we go out there and spend some time.
We'll learn to reach the stars by and by, but only if we keep taking those baby-steps now...
Possibly true. Are your chances of surviving an asteroid falling to Earth better if you are (a) on Earth when it falls, or (b) on Mars when it falls on Earth? For better or for worse, we'll be stuck with Earth for the next couple of decades. The last time human space flight has accomplished anything significant was some 35 years ago. I think we should suspend human space flight for the next 20 years or so and invest the money saved into unmanned flight.
Waiting 20 years would just add 20 years to the period we'll be stuck on Earth.
And, if we choose to give up on manned spaceflight, why bother with unmanned flight? Unmanned probes have essentially no value to humanity. Knowing more about Saturn's moons does nothing for people on Earth. Ditto Mercury. Ooh, we might learn more about the origin of the Universe! Who really cares?
Go through the deep-space probes, and find ONE thing that they've learned that has had an effect on normal people on this planet. I'm curious....
The Polynesians crossed and recrossed the Pacific in canoes.
The Atlantic was crossed in a 15 foot open boat in the 1800's. And a 13 footer.
Someone crossed the Pacific in a 10 foot boat in the 1980's, as I recall.
In other words, small boats can cross oceans, if you know what you're doing. And there's no way to learn other than by doing.
Hmm, is it possible there is more to space than science?
How about a place to keep our industry that is REALLY nimby?
And a second place to live, in case something bad happens to the first? One dinosaur killer falling out of the sky, and humanity is toast. People on Mars and Luna means it takes at least three. People on a planet around Alpha Centauri would survive the inevitable death of our sun. Etc, etc, etc.
Population pressure surely played a factor. Glaciers didn't. There weren't any in Africa.
Being a hunter gatherer doesn't look idyllic from here. How did it look to the people 300,000 years ago? The ones who couldn't conceive of another lifestyle?
True enough, he claimed to be going for China or Japan. Too bad he hit that big rock in the middle. However, if the big rock hadn't been there, he wouldn't have reached CHina or Japan. He'd have died along with his crew of lack of fresh water or food long before he could go the extra 8000 miles.
Truth is, he didn't bring sufficient supplies to reach the Far East. Previous voyages to the Far East went around Africa, where land (and food and water) were always close at hand, and frequent stops were possible. Columbus tried something new - head out into the open ocean with enough supplies for the trip. And lucky for him that rock was in the way, since he guessed wrong on the supplies.