See, I would have gone and done it the other way around: Keep the clutch pedal but lose the gear lever (or at least reduce it to reverse, neutral and forward; you could maybe even get rid of reverse,if you could sense the driver turning round in their seat). If you have been accelerating, but come off the gas whilst depressing the clutch, then you must want to change up a gear. If you are braking, then depress the clutch, then you obviously want to change down. If you are flooring the gas pedal whilst depressing the clutch, then you want to change down a gear for increased acceleration.
The clutch pedal serves an important function: it lets you take up the drive smoothly. The gear lever is really the non-essential partner. The car can know for itself what gear it wants to be in, based on road speed and engine speed. Yet it seems that everyone wants to lose the pedal and keep the stick. That's the bit I can't get my head round.
Why do people even use toasters? I would do almost anything rather than eat electric toast!
For me, it's got to be home-baked bread (obviously -- store-bought bread is just minging), between 24 and 72 hours old (even if it's not started to go mouldy, bread which is too old has lost too much moisture and so toasts too quickly; too young and it's a sin to toast it), toasted under methane gas (not propane and certainly not electric heat) and spread while still warm with real dairy butter (none of this "supposed to taste more like butter than butter" crap and definitely nothing made with buttermilk -- buttermilk is the stuff that you throw away when making milk into butter, and can no more impart a butter-like flavour than can the wood of the apple tree impart a cider-like flavour) which will be absorbed into the toast. Anything else is not proper toast.
This is an ill-thought-through measure designed only to court acceptance from the public. Now that it's no longer politically acceptable to go after witches, blacks, jews or gypsies, sexual offenders are the current untermenschen -- somebody to whom everybody else can feel superior; and against whom no measure is unjustifiable, irrespective of whether or not it would ever be workable in practice and/or the extent of collateral damage it would create.
Have you ever received junk mail addressed to a former occupant of your home?
Have you ever been refused credit because of a bad debt run up by a former occupant of your home?
I can answer yes to both questions. I've even received late-night faxes from abroad on my voice line, because my phone number used to be a fax number (the telco had run out of never-before-used numbers and so had to give me a recycled one; it had been out of service for over a year, but that didn't help against some overseas scumsucker with an out-of-date phone book).
Now think of the way that information tends to hang around on the internet: somebody sees an interesting story, makes a copy of it on their website, the original goes away but the copy persists. Also, "sexual offences" cover a broad gamut. Legally there is no distinction between someone who has non-penetrative sex with a 15 year, 364 day old girl who managed to get into an over-18s bar; and someone who participated in gang-rape of a pre-school child. Being caught taking a leak in the street (in times when councils are closing public toilets, and bars and restaurants are erecting bogus "toilets are for customers' use only" signs [they're bogus because entering the premises for the purpose of using the toilet makes you automatically a customer]) is also deemed a sexual offence.
Still think all this tracking of sexual offenders is a good idea? I know exactly why this man did what he did.
The moment merely obeying the Law of the Land requires a piece of proprietary technology -- any kind of proprietary technology, be it closed-source software or a patented widget -- then the Law has been privatised via the back door.
You surely don't need telling how and why that's a bad thing.
Edison wasn't above creating FUD. In a scenario eerily reminiscent of todays battle of Open Source vs. Closed Source, Edison sought to promote his (technically inferior) direct current system in which he had a lot of money already invested, by casting aspersions on the (technically superior) alternating current system which everyone else was investing in. In order to do this, he used alternating current to kill the unfortunate stray cats and dogs that wandered into his Menlo Park complex; thus "proving" that AC was more dangerous than DC (which just made them meow / bark a bit).
I sometimes have visions of Ballmer and co. using Open Source software to kill stray animals around Redmond.....
Note for sake of completeness: DC has been a little bit less unviable ever since the invention of the switched-mode power supply; but that in all probability would never have been invented in the first place without the wide uptake of electricity which could only ever have been brought about by the use of AC.
The solution is to find a better way of rewarding innovators than the present system of granting inventors a temporary monopoly over their invention in exchange for ultimately sharing their ideas with the world.
Joseph Swan invented the filament light bulb in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, in 1878; a year before Thomas Edison. Assuming he filed his patent application and shew his prototype -- 'cos in those days, you had to -- at Sunderland Town Hall within a reasonable time of the invention, the rights should have been his. Not Edison's.
What's sick is that people are still using them for illumination today. If everyone switched to energy-saving fluorescent lamps, we could close down a power station. Filament bulbs for use on mains power should be taxed at not less than £0.02 (€0.03) per watt.
Not in Britain it hasn't always been like that. The BBC is funded by the TV licence (originally radio licence, but you haven't needed a licence to listen to the radio since 1971). It does not show adverts (except for the BBC itself: other programmes, BBC publications such as the Radio Times and events organised by the BBC). It is not beholden to, and often is disliked by, the Government of the day.
It's depressing, though, to see how much mind people pay to soap operas..... they know the names of everyone in EastEnders but not their next-door neighbours.
Feet don't smell - shoes do. The odour is caused by bacteria feeding on sweat, dead skin and bits of sock and shoe lining. People who go barefoot all the time don't have smelly feet. People who wear no socks with their shoes (because wearing socks makes you look so poor -- if my trainers get stinky, I have a new pair!) generally have the smelliest feet. Walking around barefoot for awhile usually gets rid of the pong.
Fortunately, that sort of thing is banned in the UK. Unfortunately, Tony Blair likes the taste of GWB's dick too much to care about ordinary people and may well change the law -- especially if advertisers start making financial contributions to the Labour Party.
Only the Continentals can save us now; and even they have adverts on their licence-fee-funded stations.
I block all adverts and I have absolutely no compunction about it.
If I'm watching TV and it's not the BBC, and an advert break comes on, I invariably mute the sound or leave the room. I make a cup of tea, take a leak, roll a joint, clear out the cat's litter tray or something. If I'm recording the show at the same time as I'm watching it, I will even insert a chapter marker at the end of the break -- that way, pressing the next button skips straight to the next bit of programme.
I have configured a proxy server to block advertising servers on the internet. (One day, I might even put out a Feed so other people can update their own advert-blockers.) I also use highly aggressive spam-blocking. Almost nobody uses e-mail for legitimate purposes anymore anyway, so I don't care about losing the odd genuine message -- if it's important then they will find another way to get in touch with me.
I try not to buy products that are advertised. If the manufacturer is paying someone to tell everyone how good their stuff is, it can't be any good, can it? If they weren't spending money on advertising, they could afford to offer a better quality product for the same price. Get this? I AM NEVER GOING TO BUY ANY PRODUCT I SEE IN AN ADVERTISEMENT. You are wasting money if you try advertising to me.
If you depend on people watching your advert to earn money, I say screw you. Not my fault you invested in a broken business model, is it?
Evolution doesn't deal with the origin of life, just with how it could have progressed from simple organisms to complex ones. It's even been observed in action several times (Google MRSA for an unsavoury example).
If you want to discuss the separate issue of the origin of the universe, consider that a single-step process (in which a mostly-formed universe arises spontaneously somehow) is more believable than a multiple-step process (in which a creator arises spontaneously somehow, then creates a universe; or creates another creator who then creates a universe, or a third creator who creates a universe..... how do you know where to stop?)
Also, the christian creation myth (which you stole from the jews) is not the only one, so if I choose to accept a creation myth then please tell me why I should accept an import from the Middle East over a homegrown one?
Oh, and by the way: Logging in might show you have a bit of confidence in what you believe and aren't just trying to annoy people.
The bible is a book of fairy stories. It's not real. Get that? Nobody goes around acting like Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood were real. When christians start acting like the bible is real, then they deserve whatever they get from Rational people.
Tony Blair might be one for sucking up to Bush, but I wouldn't expect our Continental cousins (who do still have some bollocks) just to lie down and play dead over this one.
The British people may have been beaten down to the point where they won't stand up for anything anymore, but French workers in particular still realise the importance of bleeding when your neighbour is cut -- and so aren't afraid to go out en grève when there is some valid reason to do so.
Computer-literate does not require access to the internals of anything.
For anyone at all to be computer-literate requires for some people to have access to the internals.
The whole world doesn't need to be programmers and hardware techs.
No, I'll grant you that. But the world certainly doesn't need one private company having the ultimate power to dictate who can become a programmer or hardware tech. It's important for there to be no artificial barriers to keep anyone out of the internals. For sure there are natural barriers, like people not having the inclination. But proprietary, closed source software is a massive artificial barrier that absolutely must be dispensed with in any project which is about empowerment.
There is plenty of work to be done with a computer rather than to a computer.
That doesn't mean it's right to have one person dictating from a Word document to another person typing in an Excel spreadsheet because it's quicker than copying and pasting. (If I hadn't actually seen this being done, with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it either. Proprietary formats are fantastic, aren't they?)
For the purposes of this project, Open Source is as much a non-negotiable requirement as low power consumption. The intention is to produce a whole generation of computer-literate people. This requires that they have access to the internals, in order to learn to work with the hardware and software. Anything else would just be creating dependency -- and it would be wrong on many levels for the West to try to keep the Third World dependent.
Of course this means that there will be a whole generation of programmers who will never have known of any development methodology besides Open Source. Isn't that a good thing? Closed Source is no more or less than electronic slavery. Its time -- if it ever had one -- has been and gone.
(1) Software Patents are not enforcible in many countries.
(2) Most of those countries' constitutions, where software patents are not enforcible, expressly don't allow ex post facto enforcement of a newly-enacted law.
(3) In most of those countries, where software patents are not enforcible and ex post facto enforcement of a newly-enacted law is not allowed, patent protection is granted on a "first to file" basis, not necessarily "first to invent".
What does this mean? Even if software patents are made legally enforcible in Britain or Europe, that will only reinforce the idea that up to then they couldn't have been enforcible and if they were granted at all they were granted falsely (possibly opening up the granting national patent office to massive civil liability for the waste of taxpayer's money). So, in many jurisdictions, the holders of US software patents will have to apply for brand new patents in those jurisdictions -- and anything that would have violated those patents (had they not been up to now, to use the technical term, bollocks) can be cited as prior art (because it isn't, and wasn't, violating any valid patent) to block the new application!
There are indeed adverts on Slashdot; but the only people who can see them are the ones who don't know how to configure a proxy server, Firefox advert-blocking extension or/etc/hosts file.
(There may also be a few sad acts out there -- I mean, it takes all sorts -- who think that they are doing somebody a service by looking at adverts. Truth is you're helping nobody. If the companies didn't make such crap products, then they wouldn't need to thrust them in people's faces till they bought the products not because they wanted them or needed them, but in the hope of shutting the advertisers up. And without the huge budget that it costs to advertise products to people who neither need nor want them, they'd be less expensive or better quality for the same price. I block adverts, and I deliberately choose not to buy advertised products -- unless I missed your advert because I was blocking it.)
Now we need for national standards authorities (such as BSI, VDE &c.) to ratify this standard. Then, software which conforms correctly to the OpenDocument standard will be permitted to display the relevant national authority's mark (e.g. Kitemark). This alone will be a tremendous boost for the OpenDocument standard.
What's bad IMHO is that ISO are charging money just for access to the standard -- it's not available online for you to print on your own equipment at your own expense. But, of course, you can always implement the standard by reading the OpenOffice source code:)
The point is to make the paper record voter verified, and then you legally require the assumption that the count of the paper record is the official count.
This is still subversible. You might get to see your vote being printed on a paper roll, then wound up into the bowels of the machinery; but with anything less than the same level of scrutiny over the counting process that you would need for hand-counted paper ballots, there is an opportunity to switch the journal rolls. Extra votes could be printed between one voter leaving the booth and another entering. Thermal printers in particular are all but silent in operation; and there could easily be two in the machine, running in tandem; one that you can see which records who you actually voted for, and one that you can only hear and smell (but the sounds and odour are masked by the sounds and odour of the other one) which records who they want you to vote for. Also, the fact of the record being in chronological order creates a vague possibility of discovering an individual's vote. You would have to have a bunch of hired goons vote for candidates in a known sequence, creating a distinctive sequence on the journal roll, then take notes of who votes after them. Paper ballots don't tend to stay in order, especially if the box is given a good shake from time to time (perhaps by each voter, if it's chained only loosely to the counter).
You could have a separate journal roll for each candidate, which would make the count easier (assuming a consistent line spacing, you can count the votes with a tape measure!) but it still doesn't make it that much harder to run "extra" rolls. You also don't know -- unless you have an equivalent or higher level of security measures in place to that which would be required with boxes for hand-counted paper ballots -- that the paper that was already on the take-up spool(s) at the start of the election didn't have a few hundred "extra" votes on it.
If the paper record is distributed among all the voters (by giving everyone a receipt showing for whom they voted), you create an opportunity for voter harassment without doing anything to enhance security. You might see "Labour" printed on the journal roll, or even on Labour's "private" journal roll, and have a piece of paper to take away that says "Labour" on it; but so what? Labour don't get in, but unless every single person who voted Labour in that election brings their receipt to the Town Hall at the same time, there's no way to re-count the Labour vote. If voting receipts include identification or are hard to falsify, then they can be used to intimidate voters (Any worker wishing to take time off to vote must show their receipt, proving that they voted for the Managing Director's brother, on return; voting for any other candidate during works time will be grounds for instant dismissal without appeal). If they don't include identification or are easy to falsify, then they are useless for post-mortem verification (You're the 3000th person to show us a Labour receipt, but how do we know you aren't just passing one receipt around between everyone? or: There are 3000 of you here, all with Labour receipts; any or all of which could be fakes).
The point is that you need to place voting machines which keep a paper record under at least the same level of scrutiny as hand-counted paper ballots. You need to check that the ballot box is empty (journal rolls have nothing printed on them) before it is sealed and delivered to the polling station, you need to seal the ballot box (machine) against accepting any more votes at the close of polling, and you need to check that the actual ballot papers from the ballot box (journal roll[s] from the machine) are presented, unaltered, for counting. The machines are by nature less Universally Comprehensible than simple opaque boxes with a slot in the lid, too small to accept a ballot paper unless it is folded, and a hinged flap that will s
No, the reason why Microsoft is so successful is because they illegally abused a monopoly position. Go and read up on the history of OS/2 and DR-DOS (technically superior competitors to Microsoft products) sometime.
Microsoft also killed off the competition by tolerating piracy. Given the choice between spending £50 on a cheap-but-functional mom+pop office suite and saving £450 over Microsoft Office or pirating Microsoft Office and saving £500, most people will opt to save the extra £50. Result, the mom+pop software company goes out of business, entirely due to piracy, yet without anyone ever pirating a copy of their program!
Slashdot Mirror
See, I would have gone and done it the other way around: Keep the clutch pedal but lose the gear lever (or at least reduce it to reverse, neutral and forward; you could maybe even get rid of reverse,if you could sense the driver turning round in their seat). If you have been accelerating, but come off the gas whilst depressing the clutch, then you must want to change up a gear. If you are braking, then depress the clutch, then you obviously want to change down. If you are flooring the gas pedal whilst depressing the clutch, then you want to change down a gear for increased acceleration.
The clutch pedal serves an important function: it lets you take up the drive smoothly. The gear lever is really the non-essential partner. The car can know for itself what gear it wants to be in, based on road speed and engine speed. Yet it seems that everyone wants to lose the pedal and keep the stick. That's the bit I can't get my head round.
Why do people even use toasters? I would do almost anything rather than eat electric toast!
For me, it's got to be home-baked bread (obviously -- store-bought bread is just minging), between 24 and 72 hours old (even if it's not started to go mouldy, bread which is too old has lost too much moisture and so toasts too quickly; too young and it's a sin to toast it), toasted under methane gas (not propane and certainly not electric heat) and spread while still warm with real dairy butter (none of this "supposed to taste more like butter than butter" crap and definitely nothing made with buttermilk -- buttermilk is the stuff that you throw away when making milk into butter, and can no more impart a butter-like flavour than can the wood of the apple tree impart a cider-like flavour) which will be absorbed into the toast. Anything else is not proper toast.
This is an ill-thought-through measure designed only to court acceptance from the public. Now that it's no longer politically acceptable to go after witches, blacks, jews or gypsies, sexual offenders are the current untermenschen -- somebody to whom everybody else can feel superior; and against whom no measure is unjustifiable, irrespective of whether or not it would ever be workable in practice and/or the extent of collateral damage it would create.
Have you ever received junk mail addressed to a former occupant of your home?
Have you ever been refused credit because of a bad debt run up by a former occupant of your home?
I can answer yes to both questions. I've even received late-night faxes from abroad on my voice line, because my phone number used to be a fax number (the telco had run out of never-before-used numbers and so had to give me a recycled one; it had been out of service for over a year, but that didn't help against some overseas scumsucker with an out-of-date phone book).
Now think of the way that information tends to hang around on the internet: somebody sees an interesting story, makes a copy of it on their website, the original goes away but the copy persists. Also, "sexual offences" cover a broad gamut. Legally there is no distinction between someone who has non-penetrative sex with a 15 year, 364 day old girl who managed to get into an over-18s bar; and someone who participated in gang-rape of a pre-school child. Being caught taking a leak in the street (in times when councils are closing public toilets, and bars and restaurants are erecting bogus "toilets are for customers' use only" signs [they're bogus because entering the premises for the purpose of using the toilet makes you automatically a customer]) is also deemed a sexual offence.
Still think all this tracking of sexual offenders is a good idea? I know exactly why this man did what he did.
Bollocks.
The moment merely obeying the Law of the Land requires a piece of proprietary technology -- any kind of proprietary technology, be it closed-source software or a patented widget -- then the Law has been privatised via the back door.
You surely don't need telling how and why that's a bad thing.
Edison wasn't above creating FUD. In a scenario eerily reminiscent of todays battle of Open Source vs. Closed Source, Edison sought to promote his (technically inferior) direct current system in which he had a lot of money already invested, by casting aspersions on the (technically superior) alternating current system which everyone else was investing in. In order to do this, he used alternating current to kill the unfortunate stray cats and dogs that wandered into his Menlo Park complex; thus "proving" that AC was more dangerous than DC (which just made them meow / bark a bit).
.....
I sometimes have visions of Ballmer and co. using Open Source software to kill stray animals around Redmond
Note for sake of completeness: DC has been a little bit less unviable ever since the invention of the switched-mode power supply; but that in all probability would never have been invented in the first place without the wide uptake of electricity which could only ever have been brought about by the use of AC.
The solution is to find a better way of rewarding innovators than the present system of granting inventors a temporary monopoly over their invention in exchange for ultimately sharing their ideas with the world.
Joseph Swan invented the filament light bulb in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, in 1878; a year before Thomas Edison. Assuming he filed his patent application and shew his prototype -- 'cos in those days, you had to -- at Sunderland Town Hall within a reasonable time of the invention, the rights should have been his. Not Edison's.
What's sick is that people are still using them for illumination today. If everyone switched to energy-saving fluorescent lamps, we could close down a power station. Filament bulbs for use on mains power should be taxed at not less than £0.02 (€0.03) per watt.
Not in Britain it hasn't always been like that. The BBC is funded by the TV licence (originally radio licence, but you haven't needed a licence to listen to the radio since 1971). It does not show adverts (except for the BBC itself: other programmes, BBC publications such as the Radio Times and events organised by the BBC). It is not beholden to, and often is disliked by, the Government of the day.
..... they know the names of everyone in EastEnders but not their next-door neighbours.
It's depressing, though, to see how much mind people pay to soap operas
Three letters: PDC.
You're obviously not watching Sky. You get time to have a baby in one of their advert breaks!
Feet don't smell - shoes do. The odour is caused by bacteria feeding on sweat, dead skin and bits of sock and shoe lining. People who go barefoot all the time don't have smelly feet. People who wear no socks with their shoes (because wearing socks makes you look so poor -- if my trainers get stinky, I have a new pair!) generally have the smelliest feet. Walking around barefoot for awhile usually gets rid of the pong.
Fortunately, that sort of thing is banned in the UK. Unfortunately, Tony Blair likes the taste of GWB's dick too much to care about ordinary people and may well change the law -- especially if advertisers start making financial contributions to the Labour Party.
Only the Continentals can save us now; and even they have adverts on their licence-fee-funded stations.
I block all adverts and I have absolutely no compunction about it.
If I'm watching TV and it's not the BBC, and an advert break comes on, I invariably mute the sound or leave the room. I make a cup of tea, take a leak, roll a joint, clear out the cat's litter tray or something. If I'm recording the show at the same time as I'm watching it, I will even insert a chapter marker at the end of the break -- that way, pressing the next button skips straight to the next bit of programme.
I have configured a proxy server to block advertising servers on the internet. (One day, I might even put out a Feed so other people can update their own advert-blockers.) I also use highly aggressive spam-blocking. Almost nobody uses e-mail for legitimate purposes anymore anyway, so I don't care about losing the odd genuine message -- if it's important then they will find another way to get in touch with me.
I try not to buy products that are advertised. If the manufacturer is paying someone to tell everyone how good their stuff is, it can't be any good, can it? If they weren't spending money on advertising, they could afford to offer a better quality product for the same price. Get this? I AM NEVER GOING TO BUY ANY PRODUCT I SEE IN AN ADVERTISEMENT. You are wasting money if you try advertising to me.
If you depend on people watching your advert to earn money, I say screw you. Not my fault you invested in a broken business model, is it?
Evolution doesn't deal with the origin of life, just with how it could have progressed from simple organisms to complex ones. It's even been observed in action several times (Google MRSA for an unsavoury example).
..... how do you know where to stop?)
If you want to discuss the separate issue of the origin of the universe, consider that a single-step process (in which a mostly-formed universe arises spontaneously somehow) is more believable than a multiple-step process (in which a creator arises spontaneously somehow, then creates a universe; or creates another creator who then creates a universe, or a third creator who creates a universe
Also, the christian creation myth (which you stole from the jews) is not the only one, so if I choose to accept a creation myth then please tell me why I should accept an import from the Middle East over a homegrown one?
Oh, and by the way: Logging in might show you have a bit of confidence in what you believe and aren't just trying to annoy people.
I'm sorry, but how is this anything other than inflammatory, homophobic and just plain wrong?
The bible is a book of fairy stories. It's not real. Get that? Nobody goes around acting like Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood were real. When christians start acting like the bible is real, then they deserve whatever they get from Rational people.
Tony Blair might be one for sucking up to Bush, but I wouldn't expect our Continental cousins (who do still have some bollocks) just to lie down and play dead over this one.
The British people may have been beaten down to the point where they won't stand up for anything anymore, but French workers in particular still realise the importance of bleeding when your neighbour is cut -- and so aren't afraid to go out en grève when there is some valid reason to do so.
The "chick.com" link points to some material which is inflammatory and homophobic and may be construed by some as "hate speech".
For the purposes of this project, Open Source is as much a non-negotiable requirement as low power consumption. The intention is to produce a whole generation of computer-literate people. This requires that they have access to the internals, in order to learn to work with the hardware and software. Anything else would just be creating dependency -- and it would be wrong on many levels for the West to try to keep the Third World dependent.
Of course this means that there will be a whole generation of programmers who will never have known of any development methodology besides Open Source. Isn't that a good thing? Closed Source is no more or less than electronic slavery. Its time -- if it ever had one -- has been and gone.
(1) Software Patents are not enforcible in many countries.
(2) Most of those countries' constitutions, where software patents are not enforcible, expressly don't allow ex post facto enforcement of a newly-enacted law.
(3) In most of those countries, where software patents are not enforcible and ex post facto enforcement of a newly-enacted law is not allowed, patent protection is granted on a "first to file" basis, not necessarily "first to invent".
What does this mean? Even if software patents are made legally enforcible in Britain or Europe, that will only reinforce the idea that up to then they couldn't have been enforcible and if they were granted at all they were granted falsely (possibly opening up the granting national patent office to massive civil liability for the waste of taxpayer's money). So, in many jurisdictions, the holders of US software patents will have to apply for brand new patents in those jurisdictions -- and anything that would have violated those patents (had they not been up to now, to use the technical term, bollocks) can be cited as prior art (because it isn't, and wasn't, violating any valid patent) to block the new application!
There are indeed adverts on Slashdot; but the only people who can see them are the ones who don't know how to configure a proxy server, Firefox advert-blocking extension or /etc/hosts file.
(There may also be a few sad acts out there -- I mean, it takes all sorts -- who think that they are doing somebody a service by looking at adverts. Truth is you're helping nobody. If the companies didn't make such crap products, then they wouldn't need to thrust them in people's faces till they bought the products not because they wanted them or needed them, but in the hope of shutting the advertisers up. And without the huge budget that it costs to advertise products to people who neither need nor want them, they'd be less expensive or better quality for the same price. I block adverts, and I deliberately choose not to buy advertised products -- unless I missed your advert because I was blocking it.)
Now we need for national standards authorities (such as BSI, VDE &c.) to ratify this standard. Then, software which conforms correctly to the OpenDocument standard will be permitted to display the relevant national authority's mark (e.g. Kitemark). This alone will be a tremendous boost for the OpenDocument standard.
:)
What's bad IMHO is that ISO are charging money just for access to the standard -- it's not available online for you to print on your own equipment at your own expense. But, of course, you can always implement the standard by reading the OpenOffice source code
I was expecting to find an online, multiple-choice questionnaire ..... "Are you a murderer?" sort of thing. What a disappointment!
Unfortunately I have a big programming task ahead of me for today; otherwise I'd do it myself with a few lines of Perl and a MySQL database.
This is still subversible. You might get to see your vote being printed on a paper roll, then wound up into the bowels of the machinery; but with anything less than the same level of scrutiny over the counting process that you would need for hand-counted paper ballots, there is an opportunity to switch the journal rolls. Extra votes could be printed between one voter leaving the booth and another entering. Thermal printers in particular are all but silent in operation; and there could easily be two in the machine, running in tandem; one that you can see which records who you actually voted for, and one that you can only hear and smell (but the sounds and odour are masked by the sounds and odour of the other one) which records who they want you to vote for. Also, the fact of the record being in chronological order creates a vague possibility of discovering an individual's vote. You would have to have a bunch of hired goons vote for candidates in a known sequence, creating a distinctive sequence on the journal roll, then take notes of who votes after them. Paper ballots don't tend to stay in order, especially if the box is given a good shake from time to time (perhaps by each voter, if it's chained only loosely to the counter).
You could have a separate journal roll for each candidate, which would make the count easier (assuming a consistent line spacing, you can count the votes with a tape measure!) but it still doesn't make it that much harder to run "extra" rolls. You also don't know -- unless you have an equivalent or higher level of security measures in place to that which would be required with boxes for hand-counted paper ballots -- that the paper that was already on the take-up spool(s) at the start of the election didn't have a few hundred "extra" votes on it.
If the paper record is distributed among all the voters (by giving everyone a receipt showing for whom they voted), you create an opportunity for voter harassment without doing anything to enhance security. You might see "Labour" printed on the journal roll, or even on Labour's "private" journal roll, and have a piece of paper to take away that says "Labour" on it; but so what? Labour don't get in, but unless every single person who voted Labour in that election brings their receipt to the Town Hall at the same time, there's no way to re-count the Labour vote. If voting receipts include identification or are hard to falsify, then they can be used to intimidate voters (Any worker wishing to take time off to vote must show their receipt, proving that they voted for the Managing Director's brother, on return; voting for any other candidate during works time will be grounds for instant dismissal without appeal). If they don't include identification or are easy to falsify, then they are useless for post-mortem verification (You're the 3000th person to show us a Labour receipt, but how do we know you aren't just passing one receipt around between everyone? or: There are 3000 of you here, all with Labour receipts; any or all of which could be fakes).
The point is that you need to place voting machines which keep a paper record under at least the same level of scrutiny as hand-counted paper ballots. You need to check that the ballot box is empty (journal rolls have nothing printed on them) before it is sealed and delivered to the polling station, you need to seal the ballot box (machine) against accepting any more votes at the close of polling, and you need to check that the actual ballot papers from the ballot box (journal roll[s] from the machine) are presented, unaltered, for counting. The machines are by nature less Universally Comprehensible than simple opaque boxes with a slot in the lid, too small to accept a ballot paper unless it is folded, and a hinged flap that will s
No, the reason why Microsoft is so successful is because they illegally abused a monopoly position. Go and read up on the history of OS/2 and DR-DOS (technically superior competitors to Microsoft products) sometime.
Microsoft also killed off the competition by tolerating piracy. Given the choice between spending £50 on a cheap-but-functional mom+pop office suite and saving £450 over Microsoft Office or pirating Microsoft Office and saving £500, most people will opt to save the extra £50. Result, the mom+pop software company goes out of business, entirely due to piracy, yet without anyone ever pirating a copy of their program!