Personally I like the bit about vote-counting in France. Sounds a lot more advanced (read: secure) than the US way of doing it.
If you meant secure, why didn't you just say secure? Or, are you attempting to imply that the only advancement to be made in voting technology is security?
The reply with the recommended marker list has an alcohol based marker on it. Hydrocarbons that end in -ol are alcohols. 2-propanol is isopropyl alcohol, though they are probably using a 50-70% solution. That post also says "never use a solvent based marker". Of course, that is impossible using the correct definition of solvent (yes, water is a solvent!), but I assume by 'solvents' it means something like toluene, xylene or mineral spirits.
The latest box of generics I got was also painted on the top, as well. I haven't had them long enough to know if they will last more than a year, though (~4mo. with no problems so far).
Wrong. Windows is designed to allow root floppy access, just like Linux. Diebold machines, I hope, are not designed to give root access to blank cards.
The odds of a mutation creating all parts simultaneously are astronomical, and consequently, the only accepted theory that can sanely describe such a thing is intelligent design
So lemme get this straight. It couldn't possibly have been a 1 in billion chance, because we've been trained that "1 in billion" means "never happens", so it must have been a guy in the sky with lightning bolts, and that's the only "sane" thing you could come up with?
When I was in California, the voter's pamphlet had a grid on the first page with all the punch locations (a grid of numbers) I marked that while examining the issues and voted acording to that in the booth. There is a take home record for anyone who wants it.
This is traditionally called the sample ballot. It will look different in every district, depending on your voting equipment. In my district, the sample ballot is the same exact sheet you see in the (electronic) voting machine, and is the same sheet used for absentee balloting (without "sample ballot" printed in 25% grayscale across it). They send out the sample ballots in New Jersey about 2 weeks before the election, so that one can review all the choices, and familiarize yourself with the layout of the choices, before entering the polling machine. The aim, of course, is to reduce confusing similar to the Al Gore/Pat Buchanan Florida problem.
Asking for the source code to the software or the blueprints for the hardware is akin to asking for the blueprints and software to the Ford F-150 because the city's transit department bought a bunch of them.
In strictly legal terms, maybe. In realistic terms, your analogy is awful. Why? Because I don't drive the truck that they buy. Because I don't use the truck that they buy to record my vote for any public office. Because that truck doesn't have the ability to rig elections. All of these are reasons which would never apply to a truck, and rightfully so. That doesn't mean they shouldn't apply to voting machines. The idea that some IP law trumps our ability to examine our election system is just a further example of the disgusting "business before citizens" mentality that the right wing has brought to the United States.
The answer to your question is no. The technical legal reasoning for this is below. The practical reasoning for this follows. There is only one federal election: President(*). That election only occurs every 4 years. Creating a federal agency and bureaucracy just for that is pretty ridiculous. Because local elections happen several times per year (at least in my district, school elections are held in April, and general elections in November), the local election boards are much better equipped to run the presidential election.
*(Legal Reason) Because of the way the electoral college operates, the presidential election is technically a state level election. When you vote for president, you are actually voting for your state's electoral college members, who will then vote for their party's choice for president when the electoral college vote formally takes place in January. The constitution mandates that states shall select electoral college members in ways that the respective state legislatures shall establish. Obviously, for all states, this method is popular vote. In most states, the winner of the popular vote takes all the electoral votes, but there are a few states where the electoral votes are proportional to the popular vote (Maine and I think one other that I just cant recall right now). Anyway, because of that clause in the constitution (Amendment.. 12? or 16?), the states are essentially responsible for the presidential election.
Isn't the voting system run by the state? Shouldn't the source code be available by the Freedom of Information Act or something?
FOIA is a federal act, and while most states have equivalent acts, FOIA requests can not be made to a state. For example, New Jersey's equivalent law is called the Open Public Records Act. With FOIA, and with OPRA, requests can be made to any executive branch agency. The Division of Elections would fall under this in New Jersey. I cannot speculate as to whether or not they would agree to the request without court action.
Yeah, if the paper trail uses a system that was designed 50 years ago, maybe it will have a problem. However, a paper trail for an electronic system could print out AL GORE in 72 pt letters, so I don't think anyone is worried about pregnant chads.
IIRC, "Australian Voting" refers to a secret ballot type of voting procedure. I don't think it accurately describes the actual voting procedure that is currently used in Australia.
Is eBay (and paypal as well, since we're talking micropayments) really a good example? When daily we hear tales of fraud and abuse on the system, and calls for help go unheeded by the administrators?
If I had information that I didn't want the public to see I would have at least made sure that the information was not accessible by someone who is using a hex editor.
Yes I have yet to meet a person on the street who doesn't agree 100% with this statement.
Yes i did not speciate every piece of DOS into it's correct place I apologize. Should we go through and see exactly what IO.sys did compared to MSDOS.sys?
Yes. Command.com still exists. Have fun waiting 10 seconds for your typing to appear, however.
Bullshit called. When you call MS for activation numbers, you use an automated system. It takes about 2-3 minutes per number if you've memorized the menu, and about 5 minutes if you wait for the voice the whole time.
Even "repairing" an installation in W2k pro means entering the CD Key. BAD! I have to dig up a key from my docs every time I fix something that goes wrong?
The solution to this is: when you get any software with a code, write the code on the CD. That way, they only way you can lose the code is if you lose the cd, and then it doesn't matter anyway.
I'll believe that when I see it. Shells are nice, but they need a bunch of cool tools like sed, wc, tail, grep, etc. Writing such a complete shell would be essentially rewriting DOS.
That's what you said, and it was wholly incorrect. While MS does not provide the tools, they are there, and DOS was not rewritten to do it. Therefore, your assertion is incorrect. I made no reference about Microsoft releasing cygwin tools under their new cli, or anything of that sort. I think perhaps you are confusing DOS with command line tools. Command line tools are not shell dependent, as I'm sure you are aware. I can use 'dir' in bash, and 'ls' in cmd.exe if I want to (I'm talking about cygwin-enabled Windows machines only). DOS was an operating system and shell, and is no longer used on new installations of Windows. The DOS label is frequently applied to "cmd.exe", which is an emulated DOS-style shell, but is not truly DOS, nor is it an operating system.
I'll believe that when I see it. Shells are nice, but they need a bunch of cool tools like sed, wc, tail, grep, etc. Writing such a complete shell would be essentially rewriting DOS.
Many of these tools are already available through cygwin, a set of GNU tools for the DOS/Windows platform, among other things.
If true, a big "fuck you" to all those people who said Apple wasn't forcing people into upgrading to 10.3 when the story about 10.3 broke a week or two ago.
I went back and looked at some of your other comments. You are clearly a hardcore libertarian, and since i am fairly liberal, I feel we will never come to agreement. I am not saying that the customer should have no liability, but the current situation (in terms of clear deception, like this story, among other things; not just leaving details out) is unacceptable.
You mention existing bodies which have already shown themselves to be ineffective against corporations. UL has nothing to do with the issues here. They certify products for fire safety. We're talking about deceptive advertising. Consumer Reports is one ngo that does attempt to keep a check on corporations. However, their scope and size is practically limited by cost. Also, consumer reports already exists. It is clear that they alone (and even all the groups like them (public citizen, etc) combined) are not effective enough against corporations. You mention no additional measures that would further protect consumers against practices which are currently occuring everyday. I fail to see how maintaining the status quo will be positive to the consumer.
It doesn't take legislation to protect consumers, [and] keep corporations somewhat honest...
True, but that's not what we're talking about. Shills are going to exist no matter what, because reviews are subjective. That's just the nature of the beast. The problem I was addressing was that smaller reviewers could not afford to buy products from stores to review.
I provided a *potential* pitfall for my solution. The pitfall, however, was dependent on the actions of businesses. I cannot say what businesses will or will not do, so I included it as a potential problem. If businesses want to be dicks, yes, it's not a solution. If they want to be nice, then it is a perfectly fine solution. I did not want to make an assertion ("This is a perfect solution!") when I knew it wasn't true. *That* would be like Hannity.
Amusing. One reply blames it on too much legislation, one says there isn't enough.
I have to side with "not enough" on this one. Proof by contradiction. If the legislation is making people soft, as you claim, that implies, imo, that it is working to stop the problems. Again, imo, people only trust the government where it has shown itself to be effective. However, the empirical data in this story shows that corporations are still using deceptive practices in an attempt to screw consumers, despite current legislation and government entities. Therefore, more legislation must be required.
Getting a car that performs underspec and being offered either a rebate or refund as compensation, is not a harmful experience IMO.
True, my example isn't that bad. However, one cannot assume that all of these tricks will not only be discovered but also corrected by the corporation in a fair manner. If you allow corporations to just 'correct' the behavior afterwards, instead of making it wrong to begin with, it will never end, and the compensation will get smaller and smaller.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally I like the bit about vote-counting in France. Sounds a lot more advanced (read: secure) than the US way of doing it.
If you meant secure, why didn't you just say secure? Or, are you attempting to imply that the only advancement to be made in voting technology is security?
The reply with the recommended marker list has an alcohol based marker on it. Hydrocarbons that end in -ol are alcohols. 2-propanol is isopropyl alcohol, though they are probably using a 50-70% solution. That post also says "never use a solvent based marker". Of course, that is impossible using the correct definition of solvent (yes, water is a solvent!), but I assume by 'solvents' it means something like toluene, xylene or mineral spirits.
The latest box of generics I got was also painted on the top, as well. I haven't had them long enough to know if they will last more than a year, though (~4mo. with no problems so far).
Wrong. Windows is designed to allow root floppy access, just like Linux. Diebold machines, I hope, are not designed to give root access to blank cards.
The odds of a mutation creating all parts simultaneously are astronomical, and consequently, the only accepted theory that can sanely describe such a thing is intelligent design
So lemme get this straight. It couldn't possibly have been a 1 in billion chance, because we've been trained that "1 in billion" means "never happens", so it must have been a guy in the sky with lightning bolts, and that's the only "sane" thing you could come up with?
When I was in California, the voter's pamphlet had a grid on the first page with all the punch locations (a grid of numbers) I marked that while examining the issues and voted acording to that in the booth. There is a take home record for anyone who wants it.
This is traditionally called the sample ballot. It will look different in every district, depending on your voting equipment. In my district, the sample ballot is the same exact sheet you see in the (electronic) voting machine, and is the same sheet used for absentee balloting (without "sample ballot" printed in 25% grayscale across it). They send out the sample ballots in New Jersey about 2 weeks before the election, so that one can review all the choices, and familiarize yourself with the layout of the choices, before entering the polling machine. The aim, of course, is to reduce confusing similar to the Al Gore/Pat Buchanan Florida problem.
Asking for the source code to the software or the blueprints for the hardware is akin to asking for the blueprints and software to the Ford F-150 because the city's transit department bought a bunch of them.
In strictly legal terms, maybe. In realistic terms, your analogy is awful. Why? Because I don't drive the truck that they buy. Because I don't use the truck that they buy to record my vote for any public office. Because that truck doesn't have the ability to rig elections. All of these are reasons which would never apply to a truck, and rightfully so. That doesn't mean they shouldn't apply to voting machines. The idea that some IP law trumps our ability to examine our election system is just a further example of the disgusting "business before citizens" mentality that the right wing has brought to the United States.
The answer to your question is no. The technical legal reasoning for this is below. The practical reasoning for this follows. There is only one federal election: President(*). That election only occurs every 4 years. Creating a federal agency and bureaucracy just for that is pretty ridiculous. Because local elections happen several times per year (at least in my district, school elections are held in April, and general elections in November), the local election boards are much better equipped to run the presidential election.
*(Legal Reason) Because of the way the electoral college operates, the presidential election is technically a state level election. When you vote for president, you are actually voting for your state's electoral college members, who will then vote for their party's choice for president when the electoral college vote formally takes place in January. The constitution mandates that states shall select electoral college members in ways that the respective state legislatures shall establish. Obviously, for all states, this method is popular vote. In most states, the winner of the popular vote takes all the electoral votes, but there are a few states where the electoral votes are proportional to the popular vote (Maine and I think one other that I just cant recall right now). Anyway, because of that clause in the constitution (Amendment.. 12? or 16?), the states are essentially responsible for the presidential election.
Isn't the voting system run by the state? Shouldn't the source code be available by the Freedom of Information Act or something?
FOIA is a federal act, and while most states have equivalent acts, FOIA requests can not be made to a state. For example, New Jersey's equivalent law is called the Open Public Records Act. With FOIA, and with OPRA, requests can be made to any executive branch agency. The Division of Elections would fall under this in New Jersey. I cannot speculate as to whether or not they would agree to the request without court action.
Yeah, if the paper trail uses a system that was designed 50 years ago, maybe it will have a problem. However, a paper trail for an electronic system could print out AL GORE in 72 pt letters, so I don't think anyone is worried about pregnant chads.
IIRC, "Australian Voting" refers to a secret ballot type of voting procedure. I don't think it accurately describes the actual voting procedure that is currently used in Australia.
Is eBay (and paypal as well, since we're talking micropayments) really a good example? When daily we hear tales of fraud and abuse on the system, and calls for help go unheeded by the administrators?
If I had information that I didn't want the public to see I would have at least made sure that the information was not accessible by someone who is using a hex editor.
Yes I have yet to meet a person on the street who doesn't agree 100% with this statement.
Yes i did not speciate every piece of DOS into it's correct place I apologize. Should we go through and see exactly what IO.sys did compared to MSDOS.sys?
Yes. Command.com still exists. Have fun waiting 10 seconds for your typing to appear, however.
Bullshit called. When you call MS for activation numbers, you use an automated system. It takes about 2-3 minutes per number if you've memorized the menu, and about 5 minutes if you wait for the voice the whole time.
Even "repairing" an installation in W2k pro means entering the CD Key. BAD! I have to dig up a key from my docs every time I fix something that goes wrong?
The solution to this is: when you get any software with a code, write the code on the CD. That way, they only way you can lose the code is if you lose the cd, and then it doesn't matter anyway.
I'll believe that when I see it. Shells are nice, but they need a bunch of cool tools like sed, wc, tail, grep, etc. Writing such a complete shell would be essentially rewriting DOS.
That's what you said, and it was wholly incorrect. While MS does not provide the tools, they are there, and DOS was not rewritten to do it. Therefore, your assertion is incorrect. I made no reference about Microsoft releasing cygwin tools under their new cli, or anything of that sort. I think perhaps you are confusing DOS with command line tools. Command line tools are not shell dependent, as I'm sure you are aware. I can use 'dir' in bash, and 'ls' in cmd.exe if I want to (I'm talking about cygwin-enabled Windows machines only). DOS was an operating system and shell, and is no longer used on new installations of Windows. The DOS label is frequently applied to "cmd.exe", which is an emulated DOS-style shell, but is not truly DOS, nor is it an operating system.
I'll believe that when I see it. Shells are nice, but they need a bunch of cool tools like sed, wc, tail, grep, etc. Writing such a complete shell would be essentially rewriting DOS.
Many of these tools are already available through cygwin, a set of GNU tools for the DOS/Windows platform, among other things.
I didn't RTA or anything, but still:
If true, a big "fuck you" to all those people who said Apple wasn't forcing people into upgrading to 10.3 when the story about 10.3 broke a week or two ago.
I went back and looked at some of your other comments. You are clearly a hardcore libertarian, and since i am fairly liberal, I feel we will never come to agreement. I am not saying that the customer should have no liability, but the current situation (in terms of clear deception, like this story, among other things; not just leaving details out) is unacceptable.
You mention existing bodies which have already shown themselves to be ineffective against corporations. UL has nothing to do with the issues here. They certify products for fire safety. We're talking about deceptive advertising. Consumer Reports is one ngo that does attempt to keep a check on corporations. However, their scope and size is practically limited by cost. Also, consumer reports already exists. It is clear that they alone (and even all the groups like them (public citizen, etc) combined) are not effective enough against corporations. You mention no additional measures that would further protect consumers against practices which are currently occuring everyday. I fail to see how maintaining the status quo will be positive to the consumer.
It doesn't take legislation to protect consumers, [and] keep corporations somewhat honest...
History begs to differ.
True, but that's not what we're talking about. Shills are going to exist no matter what, because reviews are subjective. That's just the nature of the beast. The problem I was addressing was that smaller reviewers could not afford to buy products from stores to review.
I provided a *potential* pitfall for my solution. The pitfall, however, was dependent on the actions of businesses. I cannot say what businesses will or will not do, so I included it as a potential problem. If businesses want to be dicks, yes, it's not a solution. If they want to be nice, then it is a perfectly fine solution. I did not want to make an assertion ("This is a perfect solution!") when I knew it wasn't true. *That* would be like Hannity.
Amusing. One reply blames it on too much legislation, one says there isn't enough.
I have to side with "not enough" on this one. Proof by contradiction. If the legislation is making people soft, as you claim, that implies, imo, that it is working to stop the problems. Again, imo, people only trust the government where it has shown itself to be effective. However, the empirical data in this story shows that corporations are still using deceptive practices in an attempt to screw consumers, despite current legislation and government entities. Therefore, more legislation must be required.
Getting a car that performs underspec and being offered either a rebate or refund as compensation, is not a harmful experience IMO.
True, my example isn't that bad. However, one cannot assume that all of these tricks will not only be discovered but also corrected by the corporation in a fair manner. If you allow corporations to just 'correct' the behavior afterwards, instead of making it wrong to begin with, it will never end, and the compensation will get smaller and smaller.