I don't know what the turnouts are for Canada's elections, but assuming that the percentages are roughly the same between the two countries (quick googling puts both at about 60%), I'm not surprised that Canada can get comparatively fast results. Not that the U.S. can't get fast results if votes are tallied as they come in, but, all other things equal, human tallying is more error prone than computer tallying.
I don't think you'd have to add all of that to have a secure a voting machine, you just need to mix paper trails with electronic tallying.
Electronic tallying is useful because it can determine results fast. Very fast.
So you apply some basic measures so that it would actually take a seasoned hacker or someone on the inside to make changes. Next, add a basic printer. Something that uses ink, and is only black and white. Once a person is done voting, the machine prints a page for the voter to look over. If they are fine with what printed, they push a button to save results and exit that session, then turn the paper slip into one of the workers to put in a locked box. Those will be used in case someone wants a hand tally of the votes.
The best way for the print-out would probably be a mix of text and a punch card. You have three columns: Item, Choice, and Punch. Punch would how the punch-card location, Item would be the thing you're voting on, and Choice would be what the user chose, in plain text.
This way, even if someone is able to get in and rig both the machine and the puncher, the correct vote will still be held in the case of a hand vote, because the user will know if something is up and either alert the people working or try to do it again (assuming it was a fluke).
Of course, this is assuming that the user actually reads the print out. We all know how well that worked in Florida...
You want to do computers, but got a psychology major? That's not going to impress a lot of employers if you go looking for a job in IT or programming. Did you at least get a minor in computer science? That would help a lot.
If you're looking to put your psychology degree to work, but still want to deal with computers, you might want to look into something like computer security. For all the hacking attempts made daily, the best way to get access to a machine is through social engineering. You could study how crackers get useful information such as birthdates and the names of kids out of people and use those to figure out passwords, using that information to set up company policies and train employees about secure passwords. Work for some big Fortune 500 company, or set up a consulting business that goes company to company testing social engineering holes and giving training courses.
Aside from that, unless you have some big computer accomplishments (writing a stable program that is used by a good number of people, open source or otherwise), some technical background likely won't be enough to get you into a big gig. Maybe working IT for a school district or library, or for a starting company, but not much else.
If you old fuddy-duddies can't wrap your head around these elecomotronics, Parker Brothers is still offering the cold hard cash version.
However, I hope that they keep the currency version around for a long time. To a kid, having large wads of paper in front of yourself to show off and rub the fact that you're winning in the other players' faces. If everyone has the same boring card, that just makes things even, now doesn't it?
Also, if they stop the cash edition, I won't be able to fulfill my dreams of filling a room with monopoly money and swimming around in it ala Scrooge McDuck.
An interesting proposition, but I think efforts would be better spend on getting Congress to disband the electoral college and actually having a vote count as a vote.
The Electoral College was useful in the pioneer days when information took much longer to get from place to place. Not everyone had the opportunity to be informed, so they voted towards a certain party and the state threw all of its electoral votes behind the winner of that popular vote.
The modern day is much different. Information is instantaneous, and people are finding out every little nuance about politicians if they dig deep enough. While the modern citizen probably isn't well informed, they do have the ability now to be informed- they merely need to go to a library to use a comptuer for an hour, or read a few newspapers. This means that citizens can discern which candidate they want. Votes are tallied quickly with the use of punch cards and now electronic voting machines (faults aside). The public's vote should be the only thing that counts now.
I prefer using the checkout lane whenever I have ~5 items. Most regular people are intimidated by doing all that themselves, and so will make longer lines at the regular checkouts, so it's much faster. If you're getting an entire month's supply of food, then you would want to stay away from the self-service lanes. But for a late night gallon of milk or grabbing some paper towels on your way home, self-checkouts are awesome.
Sansweet's responded simply by stating the likeness between the Wii controller and a lightsaber,
I don't know why LucasArts hasn't at least announced that they're working on a Star Wars game for the Wii. The first thing most people probably thought of upon the revealing of the Wiimote (after the initial "OMGWTF" moment passed) was "Holy crap this thing would make a kickass lightsaber game."
It doesn't even need a story, just give us a character with a lightsaber and let us go to town. Imagine the thrill of moving your arm and actually hearing the "VOOM FWOOM" sounds coming out of the Wiimote! Then doing various parries, blocks, and cutting Darth Maul in half. Add in having light saber battles with someone over WiiConnect or a network, and you have a great game. We can all be the Star Wars Kid!
followed by a statement that LucasArts would be supporting every next generation system.
Are there laws that require you to lock your house? Your car?
Are there laws that require you keep certain important objects and papers in a fire-proof safe?
Are there laws that require you to store your money in an FDIC insured bank?
To my knowledge, the answer is no to all of the above. So why should we have laws that require us to secure our wireless connections?
All of those things are good ideas, yes, but if someone doesn't want to do it, then they shouldn't have to. If someone doesn't want to hassle with locks on their house, why force them? It's between them and their insurance.
Besides, if you just outright force people to do something, they won't understand why they're doing it, and most likely won't do it right in the first place.
I like laws that protect people, but Big Brother is turning into Big Mother, telling us what we can and can't do with every day things.
Perhaps, but there's more to it than that. Sometimes, systems that fail do so because their most salient concept was one no one was ready for - these provide future 'innovations'.
'The high price of the PlayStation 3 is going to slow overall industry growth, especially for software,
I doubt that. Now that the XBox 360 has the numbers to meet the demand (which dwindled as available units rose, heh), and some good software over the horizon, a lot of people who might have been interested in getting a PS3 at $600 would probably consider getting a 360 at only $400.
And let's not forget Nintendo. The Wii is currently projected to cost no more than $250 (if that), and will certainly be an enticing holiday gift. Not to mention that having a Zelda release game is going to make these things fly off the shelf, so they are likely going to be a big boost to the gaming industry.
The PS3 will cause slow sales for Sony's console department, which may cause slow down compared to the sales of the PS2, but it won't slow down the entire industry.
Hong Kong: Aha! You people are pirating software and video games! Pirates: Aha! You are using child labor! Joe Everyday: Oh no, who should I hate more? RIAA/MPAA: The pirates, they're the worst kind of criminal! American Government: Think of the children! Joe Everyday: [glares] Not helping!
And then Canada just kind of laughs and goes back to whatever its doing.
Hackers are using techniques popularised by developers of open-source software like Linux to improve their malicious code, a researcher at McAfee has said.
Nowhere is this more apparent than within the growing families of 'bot' software, which allow hackers to remotely control infected computers. Unlike viruses of the past, bots tend to be written by a group of authors, who often collaborate by using the same tools and techniques as open-source developers, said Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager with McAfee's Avert Labs.
Ingenious. These men have certainly found the root of the problem. These malicious hackers (or crackers, if you will) are using open-source techniques to do their bidding. And because evil men use open-source, all open-source must be bad!
You know, now that I think about it, suicide bombers often use cars... Cars are evil! We should all write stern letters to GM and Ford, telling them how evil all their vehicles are because a small minority of people use them for evil.
The fact is that even if those open source models didn't exist, crackers would still be making botnets. The one thing that would actually stop these guys from making botnets would be having Microsoft put out a secure OS (and/or people actually making sure to secure their computer- it's not hard!). Having a proper, functioning anti-virus program is a good start.
The availability of online services for all three next-gen titles will help ramp up creativity. If the companies are smart, they can release "mini" dev kits, and liscense content for cheap (or free!) online distribution. It would be great to see would-be developers crank out a level for a potential game (probably with dumbed-down graphics and no voice acting/SFX) and let people play it and see if they would be interested in playing more. If so, then they have more of a reason to continue with this original idea and put out a full fledged game. Or, for smaller developers, make a longer, better game, stick it on the online portion of a console(s), and if it sells well then they can go on to make a full game with industry backing.
The Wii itself is going to be helping the little guy. While we can expect a plethora of FPS and Lightsaber games (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease), the dev kit for the Wii is a mere $2000! This means that a group of friends (or another small, interested party) who really want to get into this can pool their money and get some capitol from a rich uncle to start creating something.
I wonder what the memory will be for. I can't think of any uses, unless it is used for calibration in which case it doesn't matter that much. That said, using non-volatile memory (which did not need to be in quotes, and is probably flash) to store sound clips seems rather pointless and a waste of limited write cycles.
The internal memory in the remote is likely going to make it YOUR remote. It would store a user name/handle, the orientation you use for first-person games (inverted, etc.), and some other basic options like sensitivity. Maybe you can design and save a simple "tag" like you see in Counter Strike. (This would be a useful function of Mario Paint Wii). These things can be used between a lot of the games, so it will save some game-save space, as well as make it easier to play over at your friends house.
You can just grab your Wiimote, stickit in your pocket, and head over. You won't need to take time to set up any of your basic options once over there, just the options specific to that game.
Also, the controllers will probably have a unique identifier associated with each one, so if you do often go over to a friend's house to play a game, you don't have to go through selecting your profile each time. You just register your controller, the console reads the UID, and the game pulls the respective profile from the save state.
I often play Halo with friends, and it's always annoying having to wait for everyone to scroll through all the profiles and find theirs. Or, worse, if they don't have an account but want to personalize one they have to go through the process of setting up, while everyone has to wait. Features like what I listed above would make it much easier to just jump into a game (assuming they have their own Wiimote), unless it's someone's absolute first time playing.
If you're already making more than you need, why work more? Go to the park, watch some TV, rent a hooker, something. You have the free time without the worry, so go make use of it. I would love to only work 25 hours a week making more than I need.
Anyway, as to how I maintain my work focus- I don't. I've always had a poor short term memory and get distracted easily, so whenever I get something new to do or to get, I write it down. On a notepad, in a task file, anywhere that I can regular check when I say "Now, what the hell have I been working on?"
According to a friend of mine (I don't have enough money to do this myself) having two monitors can really help. Dedicate one window to mainly work, and the other to mainly fun. If you feel yourself getting bored, just turn your head slightly and read some Slashdot. The work will be right there, in the other monitor, staring you in the face. If you get a stroke of inspiration, you just turn right back.
Also, don't sit at the computer all the time. I worked in tech support for a small company for a while, and it was refreshing to get up and walk to someone else's desk to help them with a problem, or to replace a bad monitor/keyboard/cup holder. (I didn't have my sleep apnea diagnosed at the time, so I was tired all the time, but it still helped.) My new job as a programmer has me sitting in front of a computer for eight hours straight. We're allowed two fifteen minute breaks and a half hour lunch. The work environment doesn't really allow for personal web browsing, goofing off, or going somewhere for lunch. (Yes, I do hate it, but it's for an internship and is providing some great experience.) However, even taking a ten minute or so walk around the building is helpful in re-energizing me, at least for a bit.
Yeah. This should definately be a priority at the summit.
Because, you know, there aren't third world countries with rampant militants who will shoot anything, and children going hungry, and human rights violations, and the middle east isn't breaking out in all hell.
I mean, since we have all those big problems taken care of, now we can get down to the little petty issues. Right?
True, kids might have other opportunities to socialize outside of school (though it gets hard if you live on a farm out in the country, or in a small town full of mostly old retired people). However, school teaches important social values because you're basically forced into a situation with a large number of unknown people. Unlike regular scenarios like that, you are almost constantly at work on something, so the ensuing uneasiness is much easier to ignore.
You learn to mind others, what can set off bad (and good) reactions in a group, how to best approach someone you don't know, working in groups with people you may not like, and so forth.
In the case of Chicago, with the violence that happens routinely, I can understand the benefit of keeping a child home to do school work on a computer. This is only a positive if the neighborhood you live in is less violent than the school tends to be.
Regardless, a lot of this will then transfer to the parent to make sure the kid is actively paying attention and not goofing around on the computer. This means we'll have parents doing basically home schooling, but without the motive/will. Also, if a family is able to have a stay at home parent, they're probably much more likely to either live in a suburb or nicer area, or they don't have a computer to begin with.
Something does need to be done about violence in schools, but this might not be the best course of action.
Slashdot Mirror
I just have to cover my eyes.
We can achieve greater pi on March 14th, 2015. (Only if you use the m/d/y format; the Brits won't get this day until January 3rd, 2415.)
There's also e day, on either January 7th or July 2nd in 2018, depending on which version you use.
And, of course, there's the rapture, or as I like to call it: i day.
Canada has about 32 million people, and the US has almost 300 million.
I don't know what the turnouts are for Canada's elections, but assuming that the percentages are roughly the same between the two countries (quick googling puts both at about 60%), I'm not surprised that Canada can get comparatively fast results. Not that the U.S. can't get fast results if votes are tallied as they come in, but, all other things equal, human tallying is more error prone than computer tallying.
I don't think you'd have to add all of that to have a secure a voting machine, you just need to mix paper trails with electronic tallying.
Electronic tallying is useful because it can determine results fast. Very fast.
So you apply some basic measures so that it would actually take a seasoned hacker or someone on the inside to make changes. Next, add a basic printer. Something that uses ink, and is only black and white. Once a person is done voting, the machine prints a page for the voter to look over. If they are fine with what printed, they push a button to save results and exit that session, then turn the paper slip into one of the workers to put in a locked box. Those will be used in case someone wants a hand tally of the votes.
The best way for the print-out would probably be a mix of text and a punch card. You have three columns: Item, Choice, and Punch. Punch would how the punch-card location, Item would be the thing you're voting on, and Choice would be what the user chose, in plain text.
This way, even if someone is able to get in and rig both the machine and the puncher, the correct vote will still be held in the case of a hand vote, because the user will know if something is up and either alert the people working or try to do it again (assuming it was a fluke).
Of course, this is assuming that the user actually reads the print out. We all know how well that worked in Florida...
Yes yes, military business and nuclear weapons are all well and good, but answer me this: Will they still be tracking Santa?
You want to do computers, but got a psychology major? That's not going to impress a lot of employers if you go looking for a job in IT or programming. Did you at least get a minor in computer science? That would help a lot.
If you're looking to put your psychology degree to work, but still want to deal with computers, you might want to look into something like computer security. For all the hacking attempts made daily, the best way to get access to a machine is through social engineering. You could study how crackers get useful information such as birthdates and the names of kids out of people and use those to figure out passwords, using that information to set up company policies and train employees about secure passwords. Work for some big Fortune 500 company, or set up a consulting business that goes company to company testing social engineering holes and giving training courses.
Aside from that, unless you have some big computer accomplishments (writing a stable program that is used by a good number of people, open source or otherwise), some technical background likely won't be enough to get you into a big gig. Maybe working IT for a school district or library, or for a starting company, but not much else.
Aha!
(Yes, I know he didn't actually say that, but it's still a famous misquote.)
Hey, where'd all these guys in black suits come frOH SHI-CONNECTION TERMINATED
If you old fuddy-duddies can't wrap your head around these elecomotronics, Parker Brothers is still offering the cold hard cash version.
However, I hope that they keep the currency version around for a long time. To a kid, having large wads of paper in front of yourself to show off and rub the fact that you're winning in the other players' faces. If everyone has the same boring card, that just makes things even, now doesn't it?
Also, if they stop the cash edition, I won't be able to fulfill my dreams of filling a room with monopoly money and swimming around in it ala Scrooge McDuck.
An interesting proposition, but I think efforts would be better spend on getting Congress to disband the electoral college and actually having a vote count as a vote.
The Electoral College was useful in the pioneer days when information took much longer to get from place to place. Not everyone had the opportunity to be informed, so they voted towards a certain party and the state threw all of its electoral votes behind the winner of that popular vote.
The modern day is much different. Information is instantaneous, and people are finding out every little nuance about politicians if they dig deep enough. While the modern citizen probably isn't well informed, they do have the ability now to be informed- they merely need to go to a library to use a comptuer for an hour, or read a few newspapers. This means that citizens can discern which candidate they want. Votes are tallied quickly with the use of punch cards and now electronic voting machines (faults aside). The public's vote should be the only thing that counts now.
I prefer using the checkout lane whenever I have ~5 items. Most regular people are intimidated by doing all that themselves, and so will make longer lines at the regular checkouts, so it's much faster. If you're getting an entire month's supply of food, then you would want to stay away from the self-service lanes. But for a late night gallon of milk or grabbing some paper towels on your way home, self-checkouts are awesome.
It doesn't even need a story, just give us a character with a lightsaber and let us go to town. Imagine the thrill of moving your arm and actually hearing the "VOOM FWOOM" sounds coming out of the Wiimote! Then doing various parries, blocks, and cutting Darth Maul in half. Add in having light saber battles with someone over WiiConnect or a network, and you have a great game. We can all be the Star Wars Kid!
Including the Phantom?
Are there laws that require you to lock your house? Your car?
Are there laws that require you keep certain important objects and papers in a fire-proof safe?
Are there laws that require you to store your money in an FDIC insured bank?
To my knowledge, the answer is no to all of the above. So why should we have laws that require us to secure our wireless connections?
All of those things are good ideas, yes, but if someone doesn't want to do it, then they shouldn't have to. If someone doesn't want to hassle with locks on their house, why force them? It's between them and their insurance.
Besides, if you just outright force people to do something, they won't understand why they're doing it, and most likely won't do it right in the first place.
I like laws that protect people, but Big Brother is turning into Big Mother, telling us what we can and can't do with every day things.
Someone get one of those fingerprint eraser things from Men In Black in here, STAT.
And let's not forget Nintendo. The Wii is currently projected to cost no more than $250 (if that), and will certainly be an enticing holiday gift. Not to mention that having a Zelda release game is going to make these things fly off the shelf, so they are likely going to be a big boost to the gaming industry.
The PS3 will cause slow sales for Sony's console department, which may cause slow down compared to the sales of the PS2, but it won't slow down the entire industry.
Hong Kong: Aha! You people are pirating software and video games!
Pirates: Aha! You are using child labor!
Joe Everyday: Oh no, who should I hate more?
RIAA/MPAA: The pirates, they're the worst kind of criminal!
American Government: Think of the children!
Joe Everyday: [glares] Not helping!
And then Canada just kind of laughs and goes back to whatever its doing.
That's odd, I don't remember posting that.
Also, my handle is wrong.
I better report this problem.
You know, now that I think about it, suicide bombers often use cars... Cars are evil! We should all write stern letters to GM and Ford, telling them how evil all their vehicles are because a small minority of people use them for evil.
The fact is that even if those open source models didn't exist, crackers would still be making botnets. The one thing that would actually stop these guys from making botnets would be having Microsoft put out a secure OS (and/or people actually making sure to secure their computer- it's not hard!). Having a proper, functioning anti-virus program is a good start.
The availability of online services for all three next-gen titles will help ramp up creativity. If the companies are smart, they can release "mini" dev kits, and liscense content for cheap (or free!) online distribution. It would be great to see would-be developers crank out a level for a potential game (probably with dumbed-down graphics and no voice acting/SFX) and let people play it and see if they would be interested in playing more. If so, then they have more of a reason to continue with this original idea and put out a full fledged game. Or, for smaller developers, make a longer, better game, stick it on the online portion of a console(s), and if it sells well then they can go on to make a full game with industry backing.
The Wii itself is going to be helping the little guy. While we can expect a plethora of FPS and Lightsaber games (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease), the dev kit for the Wii is a mere $2000! This means that a group of friends (or another small, interested party) who really want to get into this can pool their money and get some capitol from a rich uncle to start creating something.
You can just grab your Wiimote, stickit in your pocket, and head over. You won't need to take time to set up any of your basic options once over there, just the options specific to that game.
Also, the controllers will probably have a unique identifier associated with each one, so if you do often go over to a friend's house to play a game, you don't have to go through selecting your profile each time. You just register your controller, the console reads the UID, and the game pulls the respective profile from the save state.
I often play Halo with friends, and it's always annoying having to wait for everyone to scroll through all the profiles and find theirs. Or, worse, if they don't have an account but want to personalize one they have to go through the process of setting up, while everyone has to wait. Features like what I listed above would make it much easier to just jump into a game (assuming they have their own Wiimote), unless it's someone's absolute first time playing.
If you're already making more than you need, why work more? Go to the park, watch some TV, rent a hooker, something. You have the free time without the worry, so go make use of it. I would love to only work 25 hours a week making more than I need.
Anyway, as to how I maintain my work focus- I don't. I've always had a poor short term memory and get distracted easily, so whenever I get something new to do or to get, I write it down. On a notepad, in a task file, anywhere that I can regular check when I say "Now, what the hell have I been working on?"
According to a friend of mine (I don't have enough money to do this myself) having two monitors can really help. Dedicate one window to mainly work, and the other to mainly fun. If you feel yourself getting bored, just turn your head slightly and read some Slashdot. The work will be right there, in the other monitor, staring you in the face. If you get a stroke of inspiration, you just turn right back.
Also, don't sit at the computer all the time. I worked in tech support for a small company for a while, and it was refreshing to get up and walk to someone else's desk to help them with a problem, or to replace a bad monitor/keyboard/cup holder. (I didn't have my sleep apnea diagnosed at the time, so I was tired all the time, but it still helped.) My new job as a programmer has me sitting in front of a computer for eight hours straight. We're allowed two fifteen minute breaks and a half hour lunch. The work environment doesn't really allow for personal web browsing, goofing off, or going somewhere for lunch. (Yes, I do hate it, but it's for an internship and is providing some great experience.) However, even taking a ten minute or so walk around the building is helpful in re-energizing me, at least for a bit.
Yeah. This should definately be a priority at the summit.
Because, you know, there aren't third world countries with rampant militants who will shoot anything, and children going hungry, and human rights violations, and the middle east isn't breaking out in all hell.
I mean, since we have all those big problems taken care of, now we can get down to the little petty issues. Right?
Right?
True, kids might have other opportunities to socialize outside of school (though it gets hard if you live on a farm out in the country, or in a small town full of mostly old retired people). However, school teaches important social values because you're basically forced into a situation with a large number of unknown people. Unlike regular scenarios like that, you are almost constantly at work on something, so the ensuing uneasiness is much easier to ignore.
You learn to mind others, what can set off bad (and good) reactions in a group, how to best approach someone you don't know, working in groups with people you may not like, and so forth.
In the case of Chicago, with the violence that happens routinely, I can understand the benefit of keeping a child home to do school work on a computer. This is only a positive if the neighborhood you live in is less violent than the school tends to be.
Regardless, a lot of this will then transfer to the parent to make sure the kid is actively paying attention and not goofing around on the computer. This means we'll have parents doing basically home schooling, but without the motive/will. Also, if a family is able to have a stay at home parent, they're probably much more likely to either live in a suburb or nicer area, or they don't have a computer to begin with.
Something does need to be done about violence in schools, but this might not be the best course of action.