Note, hard drives are becoming less common at surplus, due to increases security conciousness about data privacy. At the State U where I work, all hard drives must be removed before surplus of a machine. The drives get shredded -- literally, not just with shred(1) -- and sold as scrap metal.
The fact of the matter is, if you price something lower, you are not going to increase your sales.
The concept is called price elasticity-- the idea that dropping a prince increases demand. Your product is evidently an inelastic good, indicating it has few substitutes, is necessary or addictive, or has high brand loyalty. It may in fact be a Veblen good, which is more desirable as price increases. The question as to whether PC hardware has the former characteristic is debatable, and is most unlikely to have the latter. Mac Hardware may be a Veblen good, but that's a different pile of Slashdot.
"Open Source" (where others may use it) isn't required, but "Fully disclosed" is. Hardware disclosure is equally important. Every chip in any approved voting machine should have its full circuit plan on file. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that the cases for the machine should be see-thru, so an attentive geek should be able to see what the chip numbers are inside the machine, and raise a ruckus if the machine isn't kosher. (A new meaning to "transparent" voting.)
On the other hand, it's only a matter of time before voting comes to the fundamental dilemma of security: Accessability versus Security. We want to assure that (1) everyone who is entitled to vote, is allowed to do so; (2) all votes are anonymous, and (3) votes may not be tampered with. I suspect these may be mutually exclusive to at least some degree, and a nasty trade off may need to be made.
Use of unapproved slot machines suffers criminal penalties. Tampering also, IIR. For vote machines, use criminal penalties on the responsible parties. If it's the local office of the Meadow Party, conspiracy and RICO laws may also be appropriate. Be sure to say hello to Senator Bedfellow!
How many of you can guess the world view of corngrower, the submitter of this article?
Assuming you're accurate in your identification, "Neither" seems likely. Casual research suggests he leans to Nader. The Kerry Supporter Worldview seems likely to be closer to his than the Bush, but I wouldn't put a lot of money on it. Your quote, however, can most readily be construed to be supporting evidence for my suggestion:
"A study on the perceptual fantasy worlds that voters live in demonstrates that Kerry voters' fantasy worlds are more real than the Bush voters' fantasy worlds!"
IE, he thinks both the big name candidates of full of it, and supporters of either are deluded.
"Understanding is a three edged sword-- your side, their side, and the truth." Yeah, quoting Babylon 5 is geeky, but SF has boiled down a lot of elegant philosophy into elegant aphorisms over the years.
The issue should not be whether this system has that potential, but whether it's any better or worse than the current system, which isn't that great. You can't tell me that it's not within the realm of possibility for a purely mechanical machine to malfunction, or be rigged.
The failure modes, however, should be considered using a metric weighted for both likelihood and impact of failure. A miscount is random; vulnerability to it is roughly equally likely to be for or against the candidate who would otherwise win. Sabotage on the other hand, where deliberate vote tampering occurs to a directed purpose, is highly likely to be for an undeserving candidate-- almost by definition. As such, I'd consider vulnerability to tampering a bigger problem than an equal probablility of a vote miscount. And the most effective way to reduce vulnerability to tampering is to increase transparancy to (multipartisan) human observers-- which the proposed electronic methods need to work on.
I believe it is possible for electronic voting to allow for an improvement in both usability and security in the electoral process over current methods. I do NOT believe it represents that improvement yet.
Your local democratic committee may be willing to help you find a policeman in the right jurisdiction. You should be able to come up with an interesting list of charges, and swear out an arrest warrant. Of course, the democrats also ought to be able to suggest a lawyer to help you work out the details, so you're less likely to get a countersuit.
My high school American government class included a novel twist on this. All members of the (sixty person) class were required to attend at least three of the school board meetings on the school board budget, and write a report on the meeting. The class went over the proposed school board budget with a fine toothed comb, and studied the school board election, too. I remember overhearing the head of the Social Studies department discussing this approach with Mr. Evans. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" "It will be educational!" Mr Evans said confidently. "For the students, or the school board?" "Yes. Probably the parents, too."
The best part is, the bulk of the students were lazy slackers who didn't want to take (or weren't bright enough to handle) the AP American Government class-- which was a bit less hands-on in it's approach. In other words, the kids who got most involved in the process were the slackers who were otherwise least likely to get involved and think about it! I think this really ought to be a part of most civics classes... after all, there's nothing like "hands on" learning, and the school board's job is education.
I've also since come to the opinion that it is generally a good sign if the educated begin to take an interest in and make thoughful suggestions about their education. However, the school board found this sudden attention from down below a bit disconcerting the first time. Much like a gardener hearing his potted plants talk gardening with him, actually.
if the voter cannot use the system, then the system should not be used!
So, if (as seems likely) there will always be some voter stupid enough to screw up any voting system ("Make It Idiot Proof and Someone Will Make a Better Idiot"), does that mean we should give up on voting entirely and jump straight to dictatorship?
Seriously, the questions are: does this system represent an improvement over the previous system? and, is it potentially improvable more than the previous system is potentially improvable? While I don't think the new system is an improvement in terms of security over the old, it is at least equal or better in usability. Furthermore, there is potential for improving the new systems to be better than the old systems.
Usability is a question of human factors engineering, and represents an approachable problem. There is substantial room for improvement in electronic methods, despite being presently comparable to the old punch-card methods.
As for security, there are obvious methods, most of which Slashdot has discussed. Open source implementation. Dedicated hardware platform. Non-flashable ROM based operating system. Hardware platform inspected, using standards comparable to the Nevada Gaming Control Board's standards for slot machines. (Hey, they're used to people trying to cheat.) Criminal penalties for tampering. Hardware backup systems comparable to a network data center.
Security is difficult, but understandable. Perfect security (including denial of service attacks) is impossible. But a team of 4th year CS undergrads with one grad student supervising could probably come up in a month with a set of design requirements that would require a Mission Impossible team to compromise, and a "blow up the polling building" scenario to DoS. And if anyone gets that desperate to tamper with a US election, this country will be in far bigger trouble than Bush claims we're in now.
A campaign built mostly on lies and deception will not get you elected.
Tell it to Boss Tweed. "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents can't read. But, damn it, they can see pictures!"
[...]a civil union code allowing any combination or number of adults as defined by state law to enter into inheritance and child raising covenants [...] I would back that 100%.
I'd not be quite that supportive. Speaking from my own observations, stability of a such relationships tends to diminish as the number of adults in the relationship increased. (Theory suggests a time correlation between order n^-2 and 2^-n.) Several of my freinds in earlier years were involved in common-law troikas and higher polys. Stability went down sharply as number of people increased. Only one troika lasted longer than the shortest conventional marriage in my personal circle of acquaintance, and none made it to five years.
Diminished stability in family structures is detrimental to the children's mental well-being and development, an arguable compelling state and social interest. Children are small people, trapped by the choices of the adults around them for good or for ill. I'm not diametrically opposed to polygamy, polyandry, or other more complicated silliness; however, I think the strictures for entering such as a legal covenant ought to be harder than a regular marriage, and possibly not so simple to end, either.
Limit it to arbitrary two adult civil unions, and my objection would not arise.
but IMO marriage is a word historically defined as a bisexual bipartner relationship.
[Blink]
Um. "You keep using that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means."
Partly true; it's also a chemical poison, but you're correct in that the radiation hazard outweighs it, and plants are less vulnerable to heavy metal poisoning than things with a nervous system anyway. Additionally, plants are generally more resistant to radiation than animals.
Of course, grass is relatively fast growing as plants go, and fast dividing cells are more radiation susceptible as a rule. On the other hand, one gram Pu is "only" about 63 milicuries-- nasty, not mindboggling-- and grass uses a high k-factor reproductive strategy (IE, try for a lot of progeny, ignore 'em, and hope some live). So, while some of your grass will be noticably unhealthy, you'll still have green grass on your lawn... until the EPA shows up. =)
An interesting arguement against outsourcing...
on
Interview with a Spampire
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
So, if you outsource your code jobs, you reduce the chance of coders to find jobs in the country.... which results in some statistical fraction turning to spam support for a livelihood... which increases your costs. Quantification is left as an exercise for the Economics and Computer Anthropology students jointly.
Yeah, it's essentially a protection racket, but it still ought to be considered in the outsourcing cost equations. After all, outsourcing decisions are all about facing the cold, hard costs of doing business, and the cost (and marginal cost) of Spam is one of them.
For the music industry, having such a dominant retailer is like being stuck in a bad marriage
Of course, from the artists' perspective, you could already make that comparison about some of the distributors.
It's also worth noting, the "Music Industry" is NOT just the RIAA. It's the musicians, the RIAA and non-RIAA distributors, and the retailers (from as big as Wal-Mart to as small as "Plan Nine from Outer Space"). It might even arguably include the instrument makers. Wal-Mart is as legitimate a part of the music industry as any member of the RIAA... which, I admit, says less than the RIAA would like.
BTW, was I the only one who caught that comment by Bush on Friday, regarding picking SCOTUS justices and hedging all over the place before finally saying, "besides, I want all of them to vote for me!"
Well, they do get to vote in the November 2nd election, just like everyone else. But yes, it will be bad if they get to vote a second time.
Would somebody please tell me what exactly is wrong with the lever operated mechanical machines still largely used in my state (New York)?
My current state doesn't use them. I used to live in NY, so I'm familiar with those machines. They were excellent. A trivial update of the design could allow electronic reading of mechanical vote tallies, if anyone cared to, while still keeping the old "seal" method for recounts. They are substantially better than the punchcard methods (used locally prior to last years touch screen purchase) or the electronic scams^H^H^H^H^Hschemes being suggested (and currenlty in use locally).
And I would say they are MORE effective than the touch screens for preventing overvoting. They give tactile feedback; you try it, and you realize the lever can't move.
Slashdot Mirror
The concept is called price elasticity-- the idea that dropping a prince increases demand. Your product is evidently an inelastic good, indicating it has few substitutes, is necessary or addictive, or has high brand loyalty. It may in fact be a Veblen good, which is more desirable as price increases. The question as to whether PC hardware has the former characteristic is debatable, and is most unlikely to have the latter. Mac Hardware may be a Veblen good, but that's a different pile of Slashdot.
On the other hand, it's only a matter of time before voting comes to the fundamental dilemma of security: Accessability versus Security. We want to assure that (1) everyone who is entitled to vote, is allowed to do so; (2) all votes are anonymous, and (3) votes may not be tampered with. I suspect these may be mutually exclusive to at least some degree, and a nasty trade off may need to be made.
What makes you think the movie industry will see logic? They haven't been too hot on it before...
Use of unapproved slot machines suffers criminal penalties. Tampering also, IIR. For vote machines, use criminal penalties on the responsible parties. If it's the local office of the Meadow Party, conspiracy and RICO laws may also be appropriate. Be sure to say hello to Senator Bedfellow!
Assuming you're accurate in your identification, "Neither" seems likely. Casual research suggests he leans to Nader. The Kerry Supporter Worldview seems likely to be closer to his than the Bush, but I wouldn't put a lot of money on it. Your quote, however, can most readily be construed to be supporting evidence for my suggestion:
"A study on the perceptual fantasy worlds that voters live in demonstrates that Kerry voters' fantasy worlds are more real than the Bush voters' fantasy worlds!"
IE, he thinks both the big name candidates of full of it, and supporters of either are deluded.
The failure modes, however, should be considered using a metric weighted for both likelihood and impact of failure. A miscount is random; vulnerability to it is roughly equally likely to be for or against the candidate who would otherwise win. Sabotage on the other hand, where deliberate vote tampering occurs to a directed purpose, is highly likely to be for an undeserving candidate-- almost by definition. As such, I'd consider vulnerability to tampering a bigger problem than an equal probablility of a vote miscount. And the most effective way to reduce vulnerability to tampering is to increase transparancy to (multipartisan) human observers-- which the proposed electronic methods need to work on.
I believe it is possible for electronic voting to allow for an improvement in both usability and security in the electoral process over current methods. I do NOT believe it represents that improvement yet.
Could be worse. You might have put "Live Fee or Die."
The best part is, the bulk of the students were lazy slackers who didn't want to take (or weren't bright enough to handle) the AP American Government class-- which was a bit less hands-on in it's approach. In other words, the kids who got most involved in the process were the slackers who were otherwise least likely to get involved and think about it! I think this really ought to be a part of most civics classes... after all, there's nothing like "hands on" learning, and the school board's job is education.
I've also since come to the opinion that it is generally a good sign if the educated begin to take an interest in and make thoughful suggestions about their education. However, the school board found this sudden attention from down below a bit disconcerting the first time. Much like a gardener hearing his potted plants talk gardening with him, actually.
So, if (as seems likely) there will always be some voter stupid enough to screw up any voting system ("Make It Idiot Proof and Someone Will Make a Better Idiot"), does that mean we should give up on voting entirely and jump straight to dictatorship?
Seriously, the questions are: does this system represent an improvement over the previous system? and, is it potentially improvable more than the previous system is potentially improvable? While I don't think the new system is an improvement in terms of security over the old, it is at least equal or better in usability. Furthermore, there is potential for improving the new systems to be better than the old systems.
Usability is a question of human factors engineering, and represents an approachable problem. There is substantial room for improvement in electronic methods, despite being presently comparable to the old punch-card methods. As for security, there are obvious methods, most of which Slashdot has discussed. Open source implementation. Dedicated hardware platform. Non-flashable ROM based operating system. Hardware platform inspected, using standards comparable to the Nevada Gaming Control Board's standards for slot machines. (Hey, they're used to people trying to cheat.) Criminal penalties for tampering. Hardware backup systems comparable to a network data center.
Security is difficult, but understandable. Perfect security (including denial of service attacks) is impossible. But a team of 4th year CS undergrads with one grad student supervising could probably come up in a month with a set of design requirements that would require a Mission Impossible team to compromise, and a "blow up the polling building" scenario to DoS. And if anyone gets that desperate to tamper with a US election, this country will be in far bigger trouble than Bush claims we're in now.
Tell it to Boss Tweed. "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents can't read. But, damn it, they can see pictures!"
Now most people don't even look at the pictures. Pitiful, ain't it?
I'd not be quite that supportive. Speaking from my own observations, stability of a such relationships tends to diminish as the number of adults in the relationship increased. (Theory suggests a time correlation between order n^-2 and 2^-n.) Several of my freinds in earlier years were involved in common-law troikas and higher polys. Stability went down sharply as number of people increased. Only one troika lasted longer than the shortest conventional marriage in my personal circle of acquaintance, and none made it to five years.
Diminished stability in family structures is detrimental to the children's mental well-being and development, an arguable compelling state and social interest. Children are small people, trapped by the choices of the adults around them for good or for ill. I'm not diametrically opposed to polygamy, polyandry, or other more complicated silliness; however, I think the strictures for entering such as a legal covenant ought to be harder than a regular marriage, and possibly not so simple to end, either.
Limit it to arbitrary two adult civil unions, and my objection would not arise.
but IMO marriage is a word historically defined as a bisexual bipartner relationship.
[Blink]
Um. "You keep using that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means."
If they really wanted to create a ruckus, they should have worn shirts simply saying "Preserve, Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States" to a Bush rally.
Partly true; it's also a chemical poison, but you're correct in that the radiation hazard outweighs it, and plants are less vulnerable to heavy metal poisoning than things with a nervous system anyway. Additionally, plants are generally more resistant to radiation than animals.
Of course, grass is relatively fast growing as plants go, and fast dividing cells are more radiation susceptible as a rule. On the other hand, one gram Pu is "only" about 63 milicuries-- nasty, not mindboggling-- and grass uses a high k-factor reproductive strategy (IE, try for a lot of progeny, ignore 'em, and hope some live). So, while some of your grass will be noticably unhealthy, you'll still have green grass on your lawn... until the EPA shows up. =)
Yeah, it's essentially a protection racket, but it still ought to be considered in the outsourcing cost equations. After all, outsourcing decisions are all about facing the cold, hard costs of doing business, and the cost (and marginal cost) of Spam is one of them.
Of course, from the artists' perspective, you could already make that comparison about some of the distributors.
It's also worth noting, the "Music Industry" is NOT just the RIAA. It's the musicians, the RIAA and non-RIAA distributors, and the retailers (from as big as Wal-Mart to as small as "Plan Nine from Outer Space"). It might even arguably include the instrument makers. Wal-Mart is as legitimate a part of the music industry as any member of the RIAA... which, I admit, says less than the RIAA would like.
Well, they do get to vote in the November 2nd election, just like everyone else. But yes, it will be bad if they get to vote a second time.
Or, alternately, fail to certify the vote count, and not send ANY electors. Which would have caused a far bigger stink.
My current state doesn't use them. I used to live in NY, so I'm familiar with those machines. They were excellent. A trivial update of the design could allow electronic reading of mechanical vote tallies, if anyone cared to, while still keeping the old "seal" method for recounts. They are substantially better than the punchcard methods (used locally prior to last years touch screen purchase) or the electronic scams^H^H^H^H^Hschemes being suggested (and currenlty in use locally).
And I would say they are MORE effective than the touch screens for preventing overvoting. They give tactile feedback; you try it, and you realize the lever can't move.
You presume that the emulator is running on a real PC, rather than one itself emulated on, say, Virtual PC for Mac.