I understand that the electronic voting system has its flaws...but so do humans!
When there are more than a couple hundred votes to be counted, it is very unlikely to avoid an occurence of human error. I wonder how many elections in the 'old days' could have been turned around because of human error?
**human error meaning benevolent vote counters that inadvertently make a mistake. NOT humans making 'accidents' on purpose.
I am not saying that Israel shoots everybody. I am making an argument against pragmatism. We cannot simply do something just because it works.
Otherwise, I we could conclude all sorts of zany things that wouldn't make much sense, even though they would work. Let's just close public schools so that kids can't shoot one another at school. Or let's destroy all the computers in the world so that won't get spam or viruses. These are all examples of things that are viable solutions to problems, but probably not the best ones.
Now that I've spent three posts trying to explain this!! I must not be very clear?!
"Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it."
What makes you think that congress can destroy terrorism? Or that terrorism can even be destroyed at all?
Terrorism cannot be destroyed because it isn't found exclusively in one religion or one country. It reaches a broad spectrum of people and groups.
This is seriously reducing a serious matter to a silly analogy, but my take on terrorism is that it's like your little sibling not getting what you have, and then doing whatever it takes to keep you from enjoying it. In our current reality however, that something is our freedom. (yeah, yeah, I know it's a lot more complex than that!!)
Pragmatism is no guide to live by. Sure, the system in Israel might work, but so would shooting anybody that looks like a terrorist once in the chest and once in the head.
Just because it works does not necessarily make it right.
I have been a math tutor for 3 years. I also have a BS in Math (for whatever that is worth).
But there is one thing that I *always* tell my students. That is this: There are many, many, MANY ways of going about doing a math problem. Sometimes the way the book describes it, or the way the prof tells you to do it doesn't make as much sense to you. For instance, some people understand fractions better than decimals, or vice versa. As a statistician (or future statistician at the time) I would always convert fractions to decimal before I worked with them because it made more sense to me. (I just had to remember to convert them back when i was done)
Point being...there are many correct ways to come to a correct answer. When we learned to multiply and do long division in elementry school we were taught an algorithm for doing so. However, as some people have already posted their 'tricks', there are other algorithms out there. You just have to make sure it actually yields a correct answer before you utilize it. (If you don't want to formally prove it, like me, then you can try it on at least 3 different sets of varied number sets. Don't pick simple numbers, they can often lead you to a wrong conclusion)
Find what works best for you. (as long as its correct!) I'm a big fan of rounding numbers, calculating them and then adjusting them from there. e.g. 17 x 4 is almost 20 x 4 = 80, but we left out 3 of the 4's so the answer is 80-12 = 68. (IMHO the algorithm we learned in elementary school for multiplying is the worst way of trying to calculate something in one's head!!!)
A good trick I use when calculating discounts in stores (i.e. 70% off, 25% off etc.) is to figure out how much 10% of the price is. This is easy, just shift the decimal point. Then if its 70% off, I'll take the 10% off price and multiply by 3. Unless it is easier to calculate it the other way around. If it is 25% off, I'll divide the price by 4 and then subtract that.
Anyhow, I haven't really given any specifics or good examples, but explore thinking about the problems in slightly different manners and then making small adjustments to the final answer. Do what makes sense to you.
Try something new hollywood!
The original WOTW only worked because of the shock and surprise factor. You cannot remake that, at least not by announcing that you are going to remake it!
Also, the original broadcast stated that it was a reading and fictional, but then went straight into 20 minutes of playing music. People who did not tune in at the beginning did not hear the message and consequently when the music was interrupted for a "special bulletin" it seemed very real.
In order to do a modern remake, they would have to have a fake movie that played for about 20 minutes before they interrupted it and pretended to put on a news program. Even then it would be hard to believe, and the surprise would be spoiled on opening night.
I just can't wait for this stuff to find it's way on national television, so we can hear the heartbreaking defeat or unlikely success stories of robots.
Or perhaps that would be "circuit"-breaking defeat?
Slashdot Mirror
To go back to voting with "Aye" or "Nay" and whichever side says it louder wins.
If we could only find a stadium big enough to fit every voting citizen of the United States...
I understand that the electronic voting system has its flaws...but so do humans!
When there are more than a couple hundred votes to be counted, it is very unlikely to avoid an occurence of human error. I wonder how many elections in the 'old days' could have been turned around because of human error?
**human error meaning benevolent vote counters that inadvertently make a mistake. NOT humans making 'accidents' on purpose.
I am not saying that Israel shoots everybody. I am making an argument against pragmatism. We cannot simply do something just because it works.
Otherwise, I we could conclude all sorts of zany things that wouldn't make much sense, even though they would work. Let's just close public schools so that kids can't shoot one another at school. Or let's destroy all the computers in the world so that won't get spam or viruses. These are all examples of things that are viable solutions to problems, but probably not the best ones.
Now that I've spent three posts trying to explain this!! I must not be very clear?!
No, I'm making a comparison. both x and y would work:
x: israel's system at el-al
y: shooting everybody that comes to the airport
I'm not saying that israel's system is wrong, I'm simply pointing out that it is a very weak argument to support a system simply because it works.
What makes you think that congress can destroy terrorism? Or that terrorism can even be destroyed at all?
Terrorism cannot be destroyed because it isn't found exclusively in one religion or one country. It reaches a broad spectrum of people and groups.
This is seriously reducing a serious matter to a silly analogy, but my take on terrorism is that it's like your little sibling not getting what you have, and then doing whatever it takes to keep you from enjoying it. In our current reality however, that something is our freedom. (yeah, yeah, I know it's a lot more complex than that!!)
Pragmatism is no guide to live by. Sure, the system in Israel might work, but so would shooting anybody that looks like a terrorist once in the chest and once in the head.
Just because it works does not necessarily make it right.
I have been a math tutor for 3 years. I also have a BS in Math (for whatever that is worth).
But there is one thing that I *always* tell my students. That is this: There are many, many, MANY ways of going about doing a math problem. Sometimes the way the book describes it, or the way the prof tells you to do it doesn't make as much sense to you. For instance, some people understand fractions better than decimals, or vice versa. As a statistician (or future statistician at the time) I would always convert fractions to decimal before I worked with them because it made more sense to me. (I just had to remember to convert them back when i was done)
Point being...there are many correct ways to come to a correct answer. When we learned to multiply and do long division in elementry school we were taught an algorithm for doing so. However, as some people have already posted their 'tricks', there are other algorithms out there. You just have to make sure it actually yields a correct answer before you utilize it. (If you don't want to formally prove it, like me, then you can try it on at least 3 different sets of varied number sets. Don't pick simple numbers, they can often lead you to a wrong conclusion)
Find what works best for you. (as long as its correct!) I'm a big fan of rounding numbers, calculating them and then adjusting them from there. e.g. 17 x 4 is almost 20 x 4 = 80, but we left out 3 of the 4's so the answer is 80-12 = 68. (IMHO the algorithm we learned in elementary school for multiplying is the worst way of trying to calculate something in one's head!!!)
A good trick I use when calculating discounts in stores (i.e. 70% off, 25% off etc.) is to figure out how much 10% of the price is. This is easy, just shift the decimal point. Then if its 70% off, I'll take the 10% off price and multiply by 3. Unless it is easier to calculate it the other way around. If it is 25% off, I'll divide the price by 4 and then subtract that.
Anyhow, I haven't really given any specifics or good examples, but explore thinking about the problems in slightly different manners and then making small adjustments to the final answer. Do what makes sense to you.
Try something new hollywood! The original WOTW only worked because of the shock and surprise factor. You cannot remake that, at least not by announcing that you are going to remake it! Also, the original broadcast stated that it was a reading and fictional, but then went straight into 20 minutes of playing music. People who did not tune in at the beginning did not hear the message and consequently when the music was interrupted for a "special bulletin" it seemed very real. In order to do a modern remake, they would have to have a fake movie that played for about 20 minutes before they interrupted it and pretended to put on a news program. Even then it would be hard to believe, and the surprise would be spoiled on opening night.
I just can't wait for this stuff to find it's way on national television, so we can hear the heartbreaking defeat or unlikely success stories of robots. Or perhaps that would be "circuit"-breaking defeat?