Amen. This is exactly what I have been feeling. The Republicans spent the last few months insulting my intelligence -- so deeply that they lost my vote.
"Voting, Mill insisted, is not a right but a trust: if it were a right, who could blame a voter for selling it? Every man's vote must be public for the same reason that votes on the floor of the legislature are public. If a congressman or a Member of Parliament could conceal his vote, would we not expect him to vote badly, in his own interest and not in ours? A secret vote is, by definition, a selfish vote. Only if a man votes 'under the eye and criticism of the public' will he put public interest above his own."
Obama said in 2002: "I know that invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst rather than best impulses in the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars."
The NY Times has a handy side-by-side comparison of the candidates on this and other topics. Also this article which quotes an Iraq expert saying this:
"The danger with Obama's rigid timetable is that it may not allow U.S. commanders to react to events on the ground... [meanwhile] McCain's policies lack the detail needed to confront the challenges of politics in Iraq. Policies developed to please the party faithful are not being subjected to close electoral scrutiny and do not match the complex political and military realties of Iraq."
I hope you're not advocating that we need to back up every file we drag into our trash cans....
I can see it now: before removing it from our hard drive, the file gets sent to DigitalArcheologists.Net. The TOS says "We promise to not open the file for 500 years!"
Fast forward to the year 2508: there is a groundbreaking ceremony (virtual, of course) to celebrate the opening of this digital time capsule. They open the archive and find...
Seven billion copies of Paris Hilton porn videos
Fourteen million copies of that Numa Numa video
Fifty billion e-mails from rich folks in Nigeria who need to transfer money out of the country
UI design, while it CAN and SHOULD take into account the amount of system resources it is using, cannot accurately predict the power of the machines that will be running it. That is why it's not a UI design issue.
For computer software, I would agree with you. You can't predict what hardware onto which the customer will try to install your software.
In this particular case, though, I disagree. For isolated software that is running on isolated hardware, where both are produced by the same company and engineered by cooperative teams (I would hope), they ought to know the hardware platform before they begin the software development. This is a single-purpose machine running a single-purpose software program. It is almost a kind of embedded system. Thus, blaming UI delays on the hardware is not acceptable, not in this day and age. This particular kiosk is not any more complicated than a ticket-sales kiosk at the train station or movie theater, or than an ATM, and we can easily design those to respond instantly.
Just because you touch once and it registers wrong doesn't imply that it can't be corrected. Has no one ever used a backspace key on a computer before? Or an eraser on a pencil, for that matter?
From the article:
"The reaction time [on the machines] may be different. And when you hit the screen a second time, it cancels your vote," Wood said. "When you get in a hurry, if you go to fast and hit it again, you can cancel what you just did."
Ketchum said, "I am educated person. I know what I wanted. I am anxious to see who wins. My son Chris said, 'Mom, I didn't vote for the people who came up on that machine. I wanted to go back and vote again. I called the lady at the polls and she said it was my fault because of the way I was punching the buttons.'"
It would really suck if votes came out wrong because of a poorly-designed user interface.
The other is, for lack of better words, a "load balancing" part that requires using multiple free accounts instead of purchasing space and CPU time for less than $2,000 USD per month....
What the heck? How many free hosting accounts were you planning on managing, that you could replace $2000/month worth of hosting? Even maxing out a fully dedicated server comes out to less than a third of that, and I really doubt you would need all that firepower. Some companies cost more than this, some cost less, but either way... $2000 seems like too much.
There is also the possibility that people will find ways of converting blogging or open source project development into income. Maybe it's not money; maybe it is bartering instead. You build this thing for me, I'll watch your children next month. I'll give you access to my blog about urban gardening (which you'll need when the economy collapses) if you keep my computer running. Etc.
Not really. That's the whole point of the Lanier story, who tried to correct a fundamental error in it: "It is true I made one experimental short film about a decade and a half ago.... I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me. Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again.... Twice in the past several weeks, reporters have asked me about my filmmaking career."
He's not a filmmaker. On Wikipedia, he was having difficulty straightening this out. Thankfully his entry no longer includes that particular error.
iTunes is not just on the Mac -- it's available for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. But thanks for the tip about having the audio files there; I'll check it out.
Slashdot Mirror
Amen. This is exactly what I have been feeling. The Republicans spent the last few months insulting my intelligence -- so deeply that they lost my vote.
From the article...
"Voting, Mill insisted, is not a right but a trust: if it were a right, who could blame a voter for selling it? Every man's vote must be public for the same reason that votes on the floor of the legislature are public. If a congressman or a Member of Parliament could conceal his vote, would we not expect him to vote badly, in his own interest and not in ours? A secret vote is, by definition, a selfish vote. Only if a man votes 'under the eye and criticism of the public' will he put public interest above his own."
Alternatively, the man had correct diction, but his statement was mistyped by the New York Times. That would make it a typographic error.
For the pedantic grammar trolls:
"...realties of Iraq..."
Though quoted directly, I'm sure the man meant "realities" instead of real estate offices...
Obama said in 2002: "I know that invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst rather than best impulses in the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars."
(reference)
The NY Times has a handy side-by-side comparison of the candidates on this and other topics. Also this article which quotes an Iraq expert saying this:
"The danger with Obama's rigid timetable is that it may not allow U.S. commanders to react to events on the ground... [meanwhile] McCain's policies lack the detail needed to confront the challenges of politics in Iraq. Policies developed to please the party faithful are not being subjected to close electoral scrutiny and do not match the complex political and military realties of Iraq."
I hope you're not advocating that we need to back up every file we drag into our trash cans....
I can see it now: before removing it from our hard drive, the file gets sent to DigitalArcheologists.Net. The TOS says "We promise to not open the file for 500 years!"
Fast forward to the year 2508: there is a groundbreaking ceremony (virtual, of course) to celebrate the opening of this digital time capsule. They open the archive and find...
What will those poor archeologists think of us?
Mod parent up!!
Mod parent up!
You know, I thought of hanging chads immediately after submitting the gpp post... *sigh*
We don't learn, do we. We just apply technology so we can make mistakes faster.
For computer software, I would agree with you. You can't predict what hardware onto which the customer will try to install your software.
In this particular case, though, I disagree. For isolated software that is running on isolated hardware, where both are produced by the same company and engineered by cooperative teams (I would hope), they ought to know the hardware platform before they begin the software development. This is a single-purpose machine running a single-purpose software program. It is almost a kind of embedded system. Thus, blaming UI delays on the hardware is not acceptable, not in this day and age. This particular kiosk is not any more complicated than a ticket-sales kiosk at the train station or movie theater, or than an ATM, and we can easily design those to respond instantly.
No, no, that's the Microsoft Vista approach to voting....
From your reply:
From the article:
It would really suck if votes came out wrong because of a poorly-designed user interface.
What the heck? How many free hosting accounts were you planning on managing, that you could replace $2000/month worth of hosting? Even maxing out a fully dedicated server comes out to less than a third of that, and I really doubt you would need all that firepower. Some companies cost more than this, some cost less, but either way... $2000 seems like too much.
There is also the possibility that people will find ways of converting blogging or open source project development into income. Maybe it's not money; maybe it is bartering instead. You build this thing for me, I'll watch your children next month. I'll give you access to my blog about urban gardening (which you'll need when the economy collapses) if you keep my computer running. Etc.
Not really. That's the whole point of the Lanier story, who tried to correct a fundamental error in it: "It is true I made one experimental short film about a decade and a half ago.... I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me. Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again.... Twice in the past several weeks, reporters have asked me about my filmmaking career."
He's not a filmmaker. On Wikipedia, he was having difficulty straightening this out. Thankfully his entry no longer includes that particular error.
Yes, we do need the same over here.
Shucks, I kinda liked "expandable future"...
True. If you're going to "GET layed" (as opposed to "PUT layed", I guess), then you are probably not "getting laid."
iTunes is not just on the Mac -- it's available for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. But thanks for the tip about having the audio files there; I'll check it out.
I think the Onion already reported on vote manipulation.
Do you actually know that Obama's campaign hasn't had takedowns used against them, or are you assuming?
He's just assuming.
You're right. My apologies for being US-centric.
How about this or this? Would they work for you?
Maybe you should look harder.
No affiliation with them -- just a satisfied customer.
I'm more reminded of this: if you torture statistics long enough, they will confess to anything.