Yeah? Well when I was in junior high we too did FORTRAN programming on the big iron, only we didn't use any stinking keypunch machines. No sir, we coded each line by filling out a Scantron card, which had the same dimensions as a punchcard, but with little bubbles in the punch positions. So we had to write out the program on some graph paper, translate the characters into the punch codes, and then bubble them in. Then we rubber-banded the deck and sent it downtown where they ran it. This was around 1973-1974, I guess (Los Angeles Unified School District).
There is no better way to learn to avoid syntax errors. The consequences of a mistake were so dire that we sweated over every line to get it right. And it was a great feeling when the program ran successfully... even if you were just printing out the first ten prime numbers:)
I think "smallpaul"s question is asking for clarification on the structure of the council. There would have to be a delineation between areas - take Environment and Energy, for example. Preservation of habitats would clearly go in the first, and oil drilling would go in the second. The two fields would quickly come into conflict when Energy wants to run a pipeline through an national park.
Any kind of "functionally" organized government would need a way of resolving conflicts between areas of responsibility. Not that I consider the idea a bad one - I've toyed with it myself in the past, and like you I am moved by the concern that our world has become so complex that no one but an expert can truly understand the issues. Sadly, I doubt that the demagogues and ideologues in charge of our political system would ever agree to be replaced.
There is real merit to removing the geographic basis for representation, especially since our society has become more interconnected and mobile. You may have more in common with someone across the country than with your neighbor across the street, for example. One step in the right direction might be to elect representatives at large, instead of by districts. That would at least increase the potential base for the few good politicians out there.
And what's more, the world would gain millions of incredibly buff, well-muscled barbarians, who would then go on to compete for Mr. Olympia. Body-building would become the primary industry of the planet. And when we are invaded by aliens (or robots from the future), we would have many, many action heroes ready to do battle! Not to mention hordes of candidates for governor of California!
Self-justification of stealing is still just stealing and it makes me sick.
You see, there's this thing called the Social Contract. It isn't written anywhere, but we all ascribe to it, not because we want to, but because society would fall apart without it.
Of course, we are not perfect, so we bend the Contract on occasion. People do it by shoplifting, or pilfering, or swapping barcode labels. Companies do it by outsourcing, or denying valid insurance claims, or bullying employees into voting against unionization, just to name a few.
Our behavior is a natural consequence of our primal desire to get ahead by whatever means necessary. Without getting caught. That doesn't make it right, I know.
It's a war of sorts. A cold war, between producers and consumers. You can fight, or you can surrender, or you can continue the low-intensity conflict ad infinitum, which appears to be the choice of many consumers.
RED - Browsing with IE
ORANGE - Giving your cat a bath
YELLOW - Cooking bacon in the nude GREEN - Browsing with Firefox BLUE - Unplugging your network cable
What some people like that don't realize is that the money still exists no matter where you spend it. If you donate 100% of your money to those that are starving then that money goes only toward food and agriculture.
You are implying that all economic activity is beneficial to everyone equally. I suppose you think it is better for King Mswati to buy his Maybach supercar than to feed a few of his poor subjects.
The "luxury economy" works well for the wealthy, not so well for the people who sell things to the wealthy, and very poorly for the people who sweep the floors of the people who sell things to the wealthy.
If for say you donate 10% of your money toward starving poeple and the rest you invest or spend, 90% of your money will be used toward overall economic development. This will likely result in a much greater long term investment toward the needy then the 100% initial fund possibility.
Only problem is WHEN is the box 'stuffed'. Probably not 100% at the end. thus if you cap at say 5k votes and 1k vote twice somehow, unless they all vote last, you lose up to 1K real votes that count.
True. I wasn't trying to say that it was an effective mechanism, only that there could be a legitimate rationale for limiting the number of ballots issued at a precinct.
An even better sytem is one that prevents Joe Smith from voting in 2 states and three precints of each twice. Though that is much harder to do and maintain the anonymity required to prevent bought or coerced votes.
It's already hard for Joe to vote twice in the same county, unless he is willing to steal someone elses identity, or submit false registration forms. For instance, counties will not count the vote-by-mail ballot of someone who has signed the voter roster at a precinct. Or at least they shouldn't if they are following the right procedures.
States are now supposed to have statewide registration databases available to county registrars to help prevent voting across county lines, but I doubt they are implemented well, if at all. Going across state lines to vote is pretty much undetectable without a national I.D. system and database - good luck with that.
The whole registration system is based around voters making out affidavits swearing that they are indeed only registered in one place. Unless you want to hand out I.D.s and check identity at the polling place (a real political battle, that one) you pretty much are depending on the statement of the voter.
Don't forget that voting twice is a felony, so there is a least a legal deterrent:)
Providing information about faults does not help to make that connection.
Oh, really? I disagree. For many products, especially in engineering, medical or other areas, knowing the limitations of a product are critical, and buyers are very demanding of such information. A seller who is honest about the faults of a product is far more likely to make a sale in those markets. At least when the informed persons are approving the decision (not always the case, I admit).
That marketers who sell to the unwashed masses fail to provide the same level of detail reflects badly on the marketers, not the consumers.
Also, many of the "tests" cited by marketers are labeled with titles such as, "Customer Success Story". This should be a clue that the material will not detail unsuccessful characteristics of the product.
If it's fluff, what's it doing in there? Could they be attempting to capitalize consumer's laziness or gullibility? Again, the proper persons to blame are the marketers.
1. THe SAME commercial gets played over and over. I was watching the Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle live and saw the same truck commercial five or six times. Same with the rest. So skipping something you've seen is hardly costing anyone money.
Repetition is the whole idea. The advertiser wants to pummel your psyche with the same image, repeated over and over, until it registers with your unconscious mind. Years of advertising experience has proven the effectiveness of this technique, even with those of us who think that we are unaffected. So yes, advertisers believe that they are losing money if you screen out repeated ads.
Car and truck ads are the best example of the effectiveness of repetition, because consumers purchase them infrequently. Repeating the brand name reinforces the image in the consumer's mind, so that when he is ready to buy a car or truck, he has already accepted the value of the brand. Advertisers have a LOT of money invested in promoting their brands. Just look at the recent sale of the Altoids and Life Savers brands to Wrigley - they paid 1.5 BILLION dollars for brand names. They are not going to sit quietly while consumers try to wall themselves off from ads.
2. Commercials have zero information quantity. That is to say they are all emotion and no logic. Whats the MPG of that truck? What is its safety ratings? I dunno, all I know is a busty woman is leaning on it on a backdrop of some colorado mountain scene with a flag somewhere on the screen. Or as Dr. Rappielle says "It appeals to the reptilian brain." I'm not a reptile and I like making informed consumer decisions (usually).
You might not be a reptile, but your brain doesn't know that:)
Don't get me wrong. I hate advertising and avoid it whenever possible. It is a $75 billion dollar industry in the U.S. - wouldn't it be great if that money could instead be used to do something worthwhile!
I am reminded of the time that a friend and I went to Vegas for COMDEX (back in the days when it was a big deal). The porn industry decided to run their own convention at the same time, called ADULTDEX. Naturally we had to check it out. On arriving we found that attendees had to fill out registration forms before being admitted. It was the funniest damned thing, 100 guys standing around looking sheepish, trying to come up with bogus names and addresses...
A straight party or 'slate' vote is an option on some ballots. Instead of voting for individual candidates, you vote for the entire slate of candidates from one party. So you just vote 'Democrat', or 'Republican', and one vote for each candidate of that party is recorded.
What happens if you also vote for the candidate independently? It depends on your state Election Code. Just one of the many little legal requirements that election system designers must take into account.
Almost certainly a configuration problem, i.e. human error. The person setting up the election system must configure the system with the right settings, so that the votes are accumulated in the correct places. If he screws up and puts in the wrong party code, votes will be recorded for the wrong candidate, or not at all.
I've seen it happen. In fact, my first job was working on an election system (punchcards and a 1970's era Data General Nova II with magnetic core memory and little toggle switches on the front you could use to program the thing bit by bit, if you had incredible patience). And with not enough training or lead time, I screwed it up, and votes got missed. Luckily we caught it before the results were official.
Of course I'm talking out of my ass. I don't know what kind of system they are using. But my gut reaction is that this particular problem is not hardware or software, but wetware. I doubt we will ever know the answer.
Had a great looking character, big, with green skin and torn clothes. I was going to call him "The Incredible Bulk". Now I'll have to make him smaller, put him in a business suit, and call him "Marvel Blows Chunks Man". His super power is his magic briefcase, from which he can throw thousands of pleadings and C&D letters, completely papering over his opponent. Fear him!
Look more closely at that ballot. I'll bet the number is actually printed on the ballot stub, and that the stub is seperated from the voted portion before it is placed in the ballot box. Stubs should be given to the voter, as proof that he voted. The voted portion is mixed with other ballots, thus secrecy is maintained. I could be wrong, but I doubt it...
Paper based ballot systems are actually quite quick to count.
True, but it takes much longer to do a recount than to do the initial count. That's because most jurisdictions which use paper ballots count them at the precincts, which are staffed with workers who are already performing other duties. It's quick because there are hundreds (sometimes thousands) doing the work. Keep in mind though, that some elections have many contests (races for judges, propositions, party committees, etc) which can slow things down considerably. Electronic systems have an edge when the ballot is complex.
When it's time for a recount, those workers have long since been paid off and have gone back to their normal lives. So the election administrators must hire them back, or pull people from their regular staff. They do not have the funding to hire as many workers as they had on election night, so the process is much slower (though presumably more accurate).
Election administrators are under enormous pressure to deliver results quickly, even though the law gives them plenty of time to make their final official canvass. That pressure comes from the news media, who are hungry for a story, and from candidates who obviously have a lot vested in the outcome. So the timeliness of results is a large factor in the decision to purchase counting systems.
I don't think that election administrators view speed as more important than accuracy, at least not the ones I have worked for, however they are very sensitive to the desires of their constituencies, and the "need for speed" is a big consideration. I do think that some jurisdictions have been seduced by the "wow" factor of touchscreens, and have been blinded to their faults.
Personally I prefer optical scan ballots, which are easy for the voter to use (one of the big
selling points for touchscreens), relatively quick to count, and which can be recounted, since the ballot is the official record. Touchscreens on the other hand have an intermediate layer between the voter and the record of his vote, and what is worse, adding a paper trail creates two separate sets of records, neither of which is directly created by the voter.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no better way to learn to avoid syntax errors. The consequences of a mistake were so dire that we sweated over every line to get it right. And it was a great feeling when the program ran successfully ... even if you were just printing out the first ten prime numbers :)
1. Company profits up
2. Workers laid off
3. Higher retail prices for consumers
Yep, looks like a win-win-win!
Say, that sounds like a good name for a euthanasia device...
Any kind of "functionally" organized government would need a way of resolving conflicts between areas of responsibility. Not that I consider the idea a bad one - I've toyed with it myself in the past, and like you I am moved by the concern that our world has become so complex that no one but an expert can truly understand the issues. Sadly, I doubt that the demagogues and ideologues in charge of our political system would ever agree to be replaced.
There is real merit to removing the geographic basis for representation, especially since our society has become more interconnected and mobile. You may have more in common with someone across the country than with your neighbor across the street, for example. One step in the right direction might be to elect representatives at large, instead of by districts. That would at least increase the potential base for the few good politicians out there.
I don't see a downside here.
You see, there's this thing called the Social Contract. It isn't written anywhere, but we all ascribe to it, not because we want to, but because society would fall apart without it.
Of course, we are not perfect, so we bend the Contract on occasion. People do it by shoplifting, or pilfering, or swapping barcode labels. Companies do it by outsourcing, or denying valid insurance claims, or bullying employees into voting against unionization, just to name a few.
Our behavior is a natural consequence of our primal desire to get ahead by whatever means necessary. Without getting caught. That doesn't make it right, I know.
It's a war of sorts. A cold war, between producers and consumers. You can fight, or you can surrender, or you can continue the low-intensity conflict ad infinitum, which appears to be the choice of many consumers.
No man is an island.
Most states specify a method to resolve contests where the count results in a tie, and in some cases, it really is decided by a coin flip! (example)
Ha! That's nothing. I used to punch out both sides of my IBM punchcards!
And it wasn't easy, because everything had to be written in the form of a palindrome...
I find it is always the people who are well organized who worry about how well organized they are.
RED - Browsing with IE
ORANGE - Giving your cat a bath
YELLOW - Cooking bacon in the nude
GREEN - Browsing with Firefox
BLUE - Unplugging your network cable
You are implying that all economic activity is beneficial to everyone equally. I suppose you think it is better for King Mswati to buy his Maybach supercar than to feed a few of his poor subjects.
The "luxury economy" works well for the wealthy, not so well for the people who sell things to the wealthy, and very poorly for the people who sweep the floors of the people who sell things to the wealthy.
If for say you donate 10% of your money toward starving poeple and the rest you invest or spend, 90% of your money will be used toward overall economic development. This will likely result in a much greater long term investment toward the needy then the 100% initial fund possibility.
In the long run, we are all dead.
True. I wasn't trying to say that it was an effective mechanism, only that there could be a legitimate rationale for limiting the number of ballots issued at a precinct.
An even better sytem is one that prevents Joe Smith from voting in 2 states and three precints of each twice. Though that is much harder to do and maintain the anonymity required to prevent bought or coerced votes.
It's already hard for Joe to vote twice in the same county, unless he is willing to steal someone elses identity, or submit false registration forms. For instance, counties will not count the vote-by-mail ballot of someone who has signed the voter roster at a precinct. Or at least they shouldn't if they are following the right procedures.
States are now supposed to have statewide registration databases available to county registrars to help prevent voting across county lines, but I doubt they are implemented well, if at all. Going across state lines to vote is pretty much undetectable without a national I.D. system and database - good luck with that.
The whole registration system is based around voters making out affidavits swearing that they are indeed only registered in one place. Unless you want to hand out I.D.s and check identity at the polling place (a real political battle, that one) you pretty much are depending on the statement of the voter.
Don't forget that voting twice is a felony, so there is a least a legal deterrent :)
You might want to limit the number of votes to the total number of registered voters in a precinct, to prevent ballot box stuffing.
B. Why you would have something like a memory contraint AT ALL in these days of cheaper-than-dirt storage.
(scratches head) ... you got me there.
Oh, really? I disagree. For many products, especially in engineering, medical or other areas, knowing the limitations of a product are critical, and buyers are very demanding of such information. A seller who is honest about the faults of a product is far more likely to make a sale in those markets. At least when the informed persons are approving the decision (not always the case, I admit).
That marketers who sell to the unwashed masses fail to provide the same level of detail reflects badly on the marketers, not the consumers.
Also, many of the "tests" cited by marketers are labeled with titles such as, "Customer Success Story". This should be a clue that the material will not detail unsuccessful characteristics of the product.
If it's fluff, what's it doing in there? Could they be attempting to capitalize consumer's laziness or gullibility? Again, the proper persons to blame are the marketers.
Cheaper CDs, cheaper pharmaceuticals, affordable health care ... sounds like paradise! Would you Canadians just invade us, please?
Repetition is the whole idea. The advertiser wants to pummel your psyche with the same image, repeated over and over, until it registers with your unconscious mind. Years of advertising experience has proven the effectiveness of this technique, even with those of us who think that we are unaffected. So yes, advertisers believe that they are losing money if you screen out repeated ads.
Car and truck ads are the best example of the effectiveness of repetition, because consumers purchase them infrequently. Repeating the brand name reinforces the image in the consumer's mind, so that when he is ready to buy a car or truck, he has already accepted the value of the brand. Advertisers have a LOT of money invested in promoting their brands. Just look at the recent sale of the Altoids and Life Savers brands to Wrigley - they paid 1.5 BILLION dollars for brand names. They are not going to sit quietly while consumers try to wall themselves off from ads.
2. Commercials have zero information quantity. That is to say they are all emotion and no logic. Whats the MPG of that truck? What is its safety ratings? I dunno, all I know is a busty woman is leaning on it on a backdrop of some colorado mountain scene with a flag somewhere on the screen. Or as Dr. Rappielle says "It appeals to the reptilian brain." I'm not a reptile and I like making informed consumer decisions (usually).
You might not be a reptile, but your brain doesn't know that :)
Don't get me wrong. I hate advertising and avoid it whenever possible. It is a $75 billion dollar industry in the U.S. - wouldn't it be great if that money could instead be used to do something worthwhile!
I am reminded of the time that a friend and I went to Vegas for COMDEX (back in the days when it was a big deal). The porn industry decided to run their own convention at the same time, called ADULTDEX. Naturally we had to check it out. On arriving we found that attendees had to fill out registration forms before being admitted. It was the funniest damned thing, 100 guys standing around looking sheepish, trying to come up with bogus names and addresses ...
From the Indianapolis Star website, Glitch causes Franklin Co. recount
A straight party or 'slate' vote is an option on some ballots. Instead of voting for individual candidates, you vote for the entire slate of candidates from one party. So you just vote 'Democrat', or 'Republican', and one vote for each candidate of that party is recorded.
What happens if you also vote for the candidate independently? It depends on your state Election Code. Just one of the many little legal requirements that election system designers must take into account.
Could also be a simple configuration error (see my other post in this thread).
I've seen it happen. In fact, my first job was working on an election system (punchcards and a 1970's era Data General Nova II with magnetic core memory and little toggle switches on the front you could use to program the thing bit by bit, if you had incredible patience). And with not enough training or lead time, I screwed it up, and votes got missed. Luckily we caught it before the results were official.
Of course I'm talking out of my ass. I don't know what kind of system they are using. But my gut reaction is that this particular problem is not hardware or software, but wetware. I doubt we will ever know the answer.
Had a great looking character, big, with green skin and torn clothes. I was going to call him "The Incredible Bulk". Now I'll have to make him smaller, put him in a business suit, and call him "Marvel Blows Chunks Man". His super power is his magic briefcase, from which he can throw thousands of pleadings and C&D letters, completely papering over his opponent. Fear him!
Look more closely at that ballot. I'll bet the number is actually printed on the ballot stub, and that the stub is seperated from the voted portion before it is placed in the ballot box. Stubs should be given to the voter, as proof that he voted. The voted portion is mixed with other ballots, thus secrecy is maintained. I could be wrong, but I doubt it...
True, but it takes much longer to do a recount than to do the initial count. That's because most jurisdictions which use paper ballots count them at the precincts, which are staffed with workers who are already performing other duties. It's quick because there are hundreds (sometimes thousands) doing the work. Keep in mind though, that some elections have many contests (races for judges, propositions, party committees, etc) which can slow things down considerably. Electronic systems have an edge when the ballot is complex.
When it's time for a recount, those workers have long since been paid off and have gone back to their normal lives. So the election administrators must hire them back, or pull people from their regular staff. They do not have the funding to hire as many workers as they had on election night, so the process is much slower (though presumably more accurate).
Election administrators are under enormous pressure to deliver results quickly, even though the law gives them plenty of time to make their final official canvass. That pressure comes from the news media, who are hungry for a story, and from candidates who obviously have a lot vested in the outcome. So the timeliness of results is a large factor in the decision to purchase counting systems.
I don't think that election administrators view speed as more important than accuracy, at least not the ones I have worked for, however they are very sensitive to the desires of their constituencies, and the "need for speed" is a big consideration. I do think that some jurisdictions have been seduced by the "wow" factor of touchscreens, and have been blinded to their faults.
Personally I prefer optical scan ballots, which are easy for the voter to use (one of the big selling points for touchscreens), relatively quick to count, and which can be recounted, since the ballot is the official record. Touchscreens on the other hand have an intermediate layer between the voter and the record of his vote, and what is worse, adding a paper trail creates two separate sets of records, neither of which is directly created by the voter.