You mean like the last several NASA rube goldberg gadgets that worked perfectly or the rube goldberg gadget that ESA augured in on their last mars landing attempt?
I can see why it might appear so to someone who thinks a diverse nation of 300 million can be run the same way as a village of 40 Amish, i.e. someone totally ignorant not only of how government works but how it must work when applied on a large scale.
Remember this post of yours next time you see any ballot initiative.
And perhaps you should refrain from voting on it out of protest over the deviation from strictly representative models of government.
Its not dramatically more complicated than the 1970s era Viking spacecraft, Phoenix (2008) used rocket motors for its final descent. NASA has tried 3 different landing systems already, and Curiosity will be yet another variation.
And while ESA gets petulant about being able to pick USA's wallet, NASA quietly launched the Rover that obsoletes ExoMars, and which will arrive in August.
NASA and JPL will have a full plate managing this rover along with the existing rovers over the next few years. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida managed the launch. NASA's Space Network provided space communication services for the launch vehicle, and the rover.
Dealing with yet another program would be a huge distraction, entail a large resource drain bringing ESA up to speed, and transferring a lot of technology to them in the process, and being asked to pay for the privileged of doing so.
Of course, you would likely get the GMail/GTalk situation where while technically the government does not have access to most e-mail/IM servers, a very large portion of all e-mails/IMs go through Google's servers.
With regard to Google Talk, its based on, and still almost purely Jabber (XMPP). Gtalk is inter-operable with almost any xmpp server.
Google's wrinkle is adding a save to gmail option, which is on by default, but can be turned off, and also an "GO off the record" option which prevents either party from saving the content on Google's servers.
Jabber IMs are usually not logged and stored on any server, its usually pass-thru, although there is often a temporary store and forward caches at your jabber provider's server for when you are off line, in practice this is not all that long lived (purged as soon as you pick up your message), and some servers offer a zero cache option.
Nothing prevents XMPP content from being encrypted.
Then in his opinion, wouldn't email be the same? It's stored on some 3rd party mail server somewhere... and for that matter, wouldn't all form of electronic communication that gets copied/stored somewhere not under your personal control also be classified as a "man in the middle attack"?
The difference is, as I'm sure you are aware, that Email isn't shared with everyone. Even Google will only mine your Gmail to select which ads it will foist on your screen. It won't publish them or let some third (fourth?) party publish them.
That it might be possible to see an email flowing thru an ISP's mail server or that your ISP might be served a warrant to deliver your email to the authorities does not come near to what happens on Facebook. Facebook it by its very nature a public posting, from which you have no recourse, even if you never sign up for facebook you can be damaged by its mere existence.
Imagine if you will, a web based email service where only you could send from your account, (as usual) but everyone could browse your email, both outgoing, and incoming (even from normal private email accounts), and you could never delete anything, even years after requesting to opt out.
Do you think it would sell?
Sadly, I suspect there are a large number of people who would be all in on such a scheme. I should patent it. But then I'd have to deal with the Winklevoss twins.
It takes retarded exaggerations and steals our comments.
It only steals them if you post as AC. Otherwise the remain your comments, freely posted, and ultimately your own responsibility, and they appear here because you GAVE them to Slashdot, not because they stole them. Step away from the keyboard and nobody gets hurt.
But I do understand your example of "retarded exaggerations". *cough*.
Square miles is square miles. You don't run everything that big from a single backbone location.
Building in two cities in two different states brings in not just the regulation of two states but also the federal government regs. Its a perfect storm of red tape. If the project survives this it could be replicated anywhere, even in the People's Republic of Santa Monica. This is as much of an experiment for Google as any thing else.
You know, just because a software update comes out doesn't mean you have to buy it. Older versions of MS Office still work just fine.
You know, you should read to the bottom of a comment before you jump on it to post redundant remarks. Had you done this you would have seen THIS:
"As for Paying, I stopped upgrading Office/Word a long time ago".
The last federal election in Australia had something like 16,000 discrepancies, the problem in Aus, is that you aren't require to prove your identity to vote, you do need to identify yourself, but that only means stating your name and address, so that you get crossed off the list, but each electorate has many polling booths, each with many lists, so the same person can vote numerous times, and even though the electoral office will eventually see that, they can't prove whether it was that actual person who went to vote a number of times, pretty much unless they admit it.
Similar systems are used in many US States, but in all cases i've ever seen, there is exactly ONE ledger. (Several to look you up in, but only one to post in). (I can't imagine doing it any other way, because the damage would be done by the time you detected it. No way to pull a secret ballot from the bin). You then vote a paper ballot, counted by machine and the paper is retained for recounts.
In Washington State they have gone to Ballot by Mail. They have a couple weeks to vote after receiving the mailed ballot, and they mail it back. Results are usually known by the official deadline, not because the post office is that efficient, but because most people get it done early and ballots are counted electronically, and voters can look up their ballot on line to see if it was received. Paper ballots read by machines, saved for recounts.
I like mail voting.
It only has two commonly cited flaws are: Homeless people, (they all get mail somewhere, how else to get their government checks), and Vote/ballot buying. (Guido comes by, watches you vote (or just collects your ballot and votes for you), hands you the six pack or weed, or $40 bucks or what-ever.)
The study is about improving voter access, not going backward.
Computer/internet access is estimated at only 77% in the US. Thats in line with the US Census bureau estimate of 68% back in 2009.
Internet cafe? Really? I have no idea where these things exist any more, and nothing would suppress voter turnout than having to queue up at some sleazy back alley gamer/porn den.
Libraries? With their semi-functional ancient computers? No.
And if you seriously don'b believe this could be gamed and hacked you are nuts. Nothing like handing the keys of power out as the prize for the first person (country) to do so.
The vote on Tuesday was because in those days you couldn't mess with the Sabbath so it had to be a week day. Furthermore we were an agrarian society for the most part, so employers didn't even enter in to it. Voting was set late in the year, after harvest, when most farmers really didn't have all that much going on. Travel by horse means a day to the county seat, vote, go home taking another day. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/01/why-we-vote-on/
Slashdot Mirror
WRONG. Go read about it. Drills and lasers. No sharks.
Google Main office is Mountain View, but, yeah, they are in Santa Monica as well.
Not a chance of getting something this big past the meddlers and busybodies that run Santa Monica.
Chrome Already sandboxes Flash, but only if you turn it on, and only in the DEV branch (Version 17 is current dev version as of this writing).
You can turn it on as explained here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116560594978217291380/posts/CJvbAMkBiNf
Sure but don't you think NASA should have made that decision back in 2009 BEFORE promising to deliver on the project?
Oh, of course, lets totally rewrite out constitution and let NASA determine its own level of funding just to please ESA.
You mean like the last several NASA rube goldberg gadgets that worked perfectly or the rube goldberg gadget that ESA augured in on their last mars landing attempt?
I can see why it might appear so to someone who thinks a diverse nation of 300 million can be run the same way as a village of 40 Amish, i.e. someone totally ignorant not only of how government works but how it must work when applied on a large scale.
Remember this post of yours next time you see any ballot initiative.
And perhaps you should refrain from voting on it out of protest over the deviation from strictly representative models of government.
Its not dramatically more complicated than the 1970s era Viking spacecraft, Phoenix (2008) used rocket motors for its final descent. NASA has tried 3 different landing systems already, and Curiosity will be yet another variation.
Cool Simulation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqqBy7C8gyU
THIS!
And while ESA gets petulant about being able to pick USA's wallet, NASA quietly launched the Rover that obsoletes ExoMars, and which will arrive in August.
Assuming there is any competency worth engaging. We have landers and rovers on mars and another one (Curiosity) enroute.
Why isn't ESA buying into our program instead of relying on us to fund theirs?
This is quite outrageous these cuts, and the mission is a good is a very good value.
The ESA mission is a largely redundant funding grab.
NASA and JPL already have a more capable lander enroute to mars.
Not to mention the ESA project is redundant.
Its got nothing to do with taking credit.
NASA/JPL have already solved most of the problems that this project is trying to replicate, launch, descent, landing and roving.
The Curiosity Rover is already en-route to mars.
NASA and JPL will have a full plate managing this rover along with the existing rovers over the next few years. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida managed the launch. NASA's Space Network provided space communication services for the launch vehicle, and the rover.
Dealing with yet another program would be a huge distraction, entail a large resource drain bringing ESA up to speed, and transferring a lot of technology to them in the process, and being asked to pay for the privileged of doing so.
Of course, you would likely get the GMail/GTalk situation where while technically the government does not have access to most e-mail/IM servers, a very large portion of all e-mails/IMs go through Google's servers.
With regard to Google Talk, its based on, and still almost purely Jabber (XMPP).
Gtalk is inter-operable with almost any xmpp server.
Google's wrinkle is adding a save to gmail option, which is on by default, but can be turned off, and also an "GO off the record" option which prevents either party from saving the content on Google's servers.
Jabber IMs are usually not logged and stored on any server, its usually pass-thru, although there is often a temporary store and forward caches at your jabber provider's server for when you are off line, in practice this is not all that long lived (purged as soon as you pick up your message), and some servers offer a zero cache option.
Nothing prevents XMPP content from being encrypted.
Then in his opinion, wouldn't email be the same? It's stored on some 3rd party mail server somewhere... and for that matter, wouldn't all form of electronic communication that gets copied/stored somewhere not under your personal control also be classified as a "man in the middle attack"?
The difference is, as I'm sure you are aware, that Email isn't shared with everyone. Even Google will only mine your Gmail to select which ads it will foist on your screen. It won't publish them or let some third (fourth?) party publish them.
That it might be possible to see an email flowing thru an ISP's mail server or that your ISP might be served a warrant to deliver your email to the authorities does not come near to what happens on Facebook. Facebook it by its very nature a public posting, from which you have no recourse, even if you never sign up for facebook you can be damaged by its mere existence.
Imagine if you will, a web based email service where only you could send from your account, (as usual) but everyone could browse your email, both outgoing, and incoming (even from normal private email accounts), and you could never delete anything, even years after requesting to opt out.
Do you think it would sell?
Sadly, I suspect there are a large number of people who would be all in on such a scheme. I should patent it. But then I'd have to deal with the Winklevoss twins.
It takes retarded exaggerations and steals our comments.
It only steals them if you post as AC. Otherwise the remain your comments, freely posted, and ultimately your own responsibility, and they appear here because you GAVE them to Slashdot, not because they stole them.
Step away from the keyboard and nobody gets hurt.
But I do understand your example of "retarded exaggerations". *cough*.
Square miles is square miles. You don't run everything that big from a single backbone location.
Building in two cities in two different states brings in not just the regulation of two states but also the federal government regs.
Its a perfect storm of red tape. If the project survives this it could be replicated anywhere, even in the People's Republic of Santa Monica. This is as much of an experiment for Google as any thing else.
.
Was there supposed to be a smiley on that, or have you been stuck in the basement THAT long?
Oddly enough the most egregious cases of vote buying on record happen in exactly the type of outreach the election commission wants to promote.
It didn't happen in vote by mail jurisdictions where it is commonly claimed the risk is the greatest.
You know, just because a software update comes out doesn't mean you have to buy it. Older versions of MS Office still work just fine.
You know, you should read to the bottom of a comment before you jump on it to post redundant remarks. Had you done this you would have seen
THIS:
"As for Paying, I stopped upgrading Office/Word a long time ago".
The last federal election in Australia had something like 16,000 discrepancies, the problem in Aus, is that you aren't require to prove your identity to vote, you do need to identify yourself, but that only means stating your name and address, so that you get crossed off the list, but each electorate has many polling booths, each with many lists, so the same person can vote numerous times, and even though the electoral office will eventually see that, they can't prove whether it was that actual person who went to vote a number of times, pretty much unless they admit it.
Similar systems are used in many US States, but in all cases i've ever seen, there is exactly ONE ledger. (Several to look you up in, but only one to post in).
(I can't imagine doing it any other way, because the damage would be done by the time you detected it. No way to pull a secret ballot from the bin).
You then vote a paper ballot, counted by machine and the paper is retained for recounts.
In Washington State they have gone to Ballot by Mail. They have a couple weeks to vote after receiving the mailed ballot, and they mail it back. Results are usually known by the official deadline, not because the post office is that efficient, but because most people get it done early and ballots are counted electronically, and voters can look up their ballot on line to see if it was received. Paper ballots read by machines, saved for recounts.
I like mail voting.
It only has two commonly cited flaws are:
Homeless people, (they all get mail somewhere, how else to get their government checks),
and
Vote/ballot buying. (Guido comes by, watches you vote (or just collects your ballot and votes for you), hands you the six pack or weed, or $40 bucks or what-ever.)
Neither is proving a significant issue yet.
The study is about improving voter access, not going backward.
Computer/internet access is estimated at only 77% in the US. Thats in line with the US Census bureau estimate of 68% back in 2009.
Internet cafe? Really? I have no idea where these things exist any more, and nothing would suppress voter turnout than having to queue up at some sleazy back alley gamer/porn den.
Libraries? With their semi-functional ancient computers? No.
And if you seriously don'b believe this could be gamed and hacked you are nuts.
Nothing like handing the keys of power out as the prize for the first person (country) to do so.
The vote on Tuesday was because in those days you couldn't mess with the Sabbath so it had to be a week day.
Furthermore we were an agrarian society for the most part, so employers didn't even enter in to it.
Voting was set late in the year, after harvest, when most farmers really didn't have all that much going on.
Travel by horse means a day to the county seat, vote, go home taking another day.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/01/why-we-vote-on/
Check your state laws about Time off to Vote.
Seriously, you get voted insightful for that troll?