In the picture with the flag why isn't the flag just hang down? I mean it kinda looks like it's in the wind (yeah, yeah, insert your favorite Capricorn One joke here). Wouldn't the gravitation force being exerted on the moon cause it "straighten out" in some way?
Playing nice may win hearts, but it doesn't win shareholders
True. Sad but true. Well stated.
Arlo did something. Apple thought they could do it better
And I no doubt they could do better. But don't you think Mac users would like to hear Apple's side? I know they rarely comment on anything but it would be nice to hear something. Right now it looks like they played unfair, which could be true on not.
Apple does have a small history of mistreating some developers. Right now it looks like they did it again. I guess I expect more from Apple than the average company.
I said: "I'm not saying that Apple stole anything or did anything legally wrong" and "Maybe [Apple] did try to work something out and the deal didn't go through."
You said: "Oh, brother, not the 'Apple stole Konfabulator' bullstuff again."
Can you read? I made a point of saying that I didn't think Apple had stole anything and we didn't know there side. On a side note, "Konfabulator" wasn't the first to do what it does. My point is Apple might want to play nice with their developers.
I'm sorry, but if it's wrong for one, IMO it's wrong for all. Apple has wielded a heavy hand against two of Arlo Rose's products: Kaleidoscope and Konfabulator and I suspect he would also disagree. Here's a little back story for those that don't know.
Arlo Rose use to work for Apple in their Human Interface Design Center and took a voluntary layoff. He then started his own little company and later launched Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a theme rendering engine for Mac OS 7 to 9.1. Apple later turned out a similar application to Mac OS 8, "Appearance Manager", which took a dig into his possible user base. Some people decided against getting Kaleidoscope (with it's hundreds of themes) and waited for Apple to turn out more than one theme or at least the tools to create Appearance Manager compliant themes. Two additional themes floated around ftp servers for awhile but since Apple never officially released them they were difficult to find. Well, "Platinum" was the only theme ever released and many felt Apple "strung" users along so Kaleidoscope would die off. (There's a lot more to this story and this is just a quick overview.)
Fast forward to today. Apple will soon be releasing Mac OS 10.4 aka "Tiger" with a program called Dashboard (although Arlo claims that Dashboard won't be out until next year). Dashboard is an application that allows users to have small javascript apps on their desktop that will access their calendar, different style clocks, control iTunes and lots of different things. The problem is is that Arlo has had similar and very popular program out for a year and a half called Konfabulator. Dashboard and Konfabulator both use small javascript "widgets" to create desktop applications. To many it seems Apple once again has used it's position as the creators of Mac OS X to snuff out another programmer that has a popular addition to their OS.
I'm not saying that Apple stole anything or did anything legally wrong but IMO they should've tried to work with Konfabulator. Maybe they could've bought some limited rights or bundled a stripped down version instead of just stepping on it. To me many of MS's past tactics and Apple's in this case are quite similar, and IMO unfair.
(FYI: I only know what has be put out on the net about the Dashboard vs. Konfabulator issue. Maybe they did try to work something out and the deal didn't go through. Apple hasn't said much about it, not out of the norm for them.)
Someone mod the parent up. He mentions some really good issues that nonprofessionals don't deal with and makes excellent recommendations. The Canon GL-2 is a good camera to shoot professional looking material with, and I agree, it's the lowest you should go. The tripod also is something most forget about yet IMO is critical. You can easily spend over $1k on one and a good low end model will be atleast $500 but well worth it. Try it out in advance and see how "fluid" it is for pans and tilts.
The only things I can think to add to the above list is a few lights, reflectors and high quality bags to carry everything. Spend a few hundred on the bags as cheap ones with fail within a month.
Going too cheap gets you local cable access results. A few extra dollars spent correctly goes a long ways and can give you a pro look.
Over the years MS has temp'ed out most of their noncore jobs like staff support, shipping, packaging, etc. so one would expect a higher than normal per staff cost. If they hadn't temp'ed out those jobs I suspect that figure would be lower. How much? Only a long term MS insider would be able to give a decent guess. MS hires alot of smart people, and smart people (thankfully) still cost money.
With their R&D campus in India I wonder if part of the cost cutting will result from a transfer of jobs to there. There's a lot of very smart people there that can afford to live well on 1/3 of an US programmer's salary. From the business point of view it makes sense to make the move. Moral viewpoint: well that depends were you live I guess (good for India, bad for US workers).
Personally I don't mind that some other country gets US jobs so long as those people are treated fairly. The past has shown us that more times than not these workers aren't treated fairly at all.
Do you need Panther to use the Tiger upgrade or will any version of OS X work? Are the hardware requirements, both minimal and recommended, the same as Panther?
My comment was how it is noble to create something and immediately share the benefits with others. What you misinterpreted it as a negative comment ("Edison is bad") when it was a positive comment ("This guy is doing a noble thing").
Hrmmmm... So, you're saying that profit and capital gain from invention is evil? I see. Can you give me half your salary please?
Is your post part flamebait? Anyways, profit is not bad, profit is good. When profit is earned and not "awarded" because of government interference, like grants or subsidies, profit can show efficiency and ingenuity. Profit can show how healthy a company is. When a company creates profit and fairly shares that profit with the people that help made it, then everyone benefits. One just needs to look at Henry Ford as an example. While making a ton of money for himself he also paid his employees quite well and reduced their work week to five days. When he shared that wealth with his employees, they in turn purchased more goods and services, creating even more jobs. With more time off the travel and tourism industry exploded, creating even more wealth for more people. Henry Ford created the middle class in America. So no, profit is not bad. Truly earned profit is a good thing.
I have a problem with people that take more than their fair share, like Edison. Look at Walmart, a company that makes billions of dollars of profit while paying their full time employees so little many require welfare to survive. And who pays for that welfare? Taxpayers. The taxpayers are subsidizing Walmart's employee wages while the owners enjoy an unearned, outragious profit and IMO that's wrong. Make companies pay their employees a fair wage so taxpayers don't have to pick up the pieces. Companies should live and die without the support of the goverment. There are many, many companies out there today that treat their employess with respect, pay them well and they in turn create wealth for the owner(s). Look at companies where the average employee time with the company is measured in decades and I'll show you capitalism that benefits eveyone.
Capitalism is good. Profit is good. Greed is bad. Isn't it?
I love Open Source software, but not out of some RMS-style people's democratic republic-- but out of the superior model it provides for development of code, and money.
As for OSS I completely agree. Go with what does the job. OSS is not a religion, it's a tool. A tool that makes sense many times over closed source products so long as it's useful. I really have no idea why you even mentioned it since my post was only about Edison. Are you frustrated about something and feel the need to lash out at anyone you see?
I completely agree. He can up with a wide range of inventions that made a very big difference in the world. He also was a shameless self promoter who did things like invent the "electric chair" solely to prove how "dangerous" his competitor's rival electrical standard (Nikola Tesla's AC) was compared to his DC.
Up to recently I use to support ~80 Win98se workstations and thinking about replacing them with 20 of these four headed dreams makes me drool. For most desktop users, that use apps like MS Office, IM, etc.; there would be plenty of power for four people and support time would really drop. Add the joy of GNU/Linux (or any Un*x style file system) that kindly drops all an user's files in their [remote] home directory (unlike MS Windows that seems to cast them to the wind and let them land where ever they may) they could be restored with a common image file. While this is possible under MS Windows one would have to admit that GNU/Linux handles it better. Clearly licencing issues would be much simpler to resolve. There are a couple of programs for MS WinXP that will let you have multiple users on one box but I suspect that it violates the WinXP EULA. Remember, a lot of companies still use Win98se because they don't want or don't have the money to upgrade both their hardware and software. This box would save them a lot of money on both ends. Yes, while hardware and GNU/Linux distros are cheap, when you add in the cost of support the move from Win98 to this thing makes much more sense than a move to WinXP.
While selling these to developing countries is nice I could see businesses wanting some to. In some ways this could really dig into HP's bottom line. Imagine if you bought a new car and got free use of up to three rentals cars anytime you wanted, would you buy a second car? Most likely not.
Home use would also be a big plus. Many parents would love to be able to have two or more kids use one computer at the same time.
While the concept has serious flaws (imagine someone trying to render a Xvid video while the other three are in openoffice(1)) it definitely has it's place in the classroom, office or home.
(1. Yes, I know that you can automaticly nice out any user's job, but you see my point.)
You bring up some interesting points and have expressed them well. Thank you for detailed response. I wish I had the time to respond to all of them but I'll take on the issues of ballot books and fraud right now.
Ballots and ballot books
Paper audit ballots, or in other words, a printed ballot that comes from the terminal and is in fact the actual "ballot" that you are turning in, is really the only way that e-ballots are going to work.
I like your idea on the surface and I agree that touch screen voting can simplify and offer greater flexibility compared to preprint ballots and preprinted ballot books. An idea I had was that the optical mark reader could also have a laser printer (driven by a separate SBC) built in that could print out different ballots and ballot books (say for different languages). The ballots could be postscript files and have a MD5 checksum to try to insure against tampering. The MD5 sum could also appear as some kind of watermark. To access the ballots a poll worker would just select a clearly marked key on something like PI Engineering's x-keys key strip (sans keyboard as in the picture).
The problem is that it incorporates another layer of technology which can break down or be tampered with. Keeping voting as simple as possible will help guard against fraud. It's harder to fake a preprinted ballot with a true paper watermark than hacking a touch screen system or altering a postscript file.
Fraud reduction
While a different evoting system other than what I proposed could possibly help decrease fraud I see it as a moot point. I suspect [with the system you described] more legal voters would be turned away than fraud would be stopped. Also IFAIK the SCOTUS ruled that an identification card can not be required to vote. By a possible logical extension it would not matter if that ID card is produced by the voter or accessible by a poll worker, it might not be legally allowed. With the more information a poll worker has to use to verify one's identification, the greater chance a mistake could be made. You mention photo verification: in Arizona a driver's license is good for an ungodly amount of time, I think until one reachs a certain age like 65. There are people with a license good for the next 30 years. If the picture the poll worker uses to verify the voter is from the driver's license (which is most likely) it could be of little use and possible be used to disqualify legitimate voters. The current system of checking a name and asking for an address for verification is hardly perfect but currently strikes a good balance between cost and vote integrity.
My point is IFAIK voter fraud is rare (less than 1% I'd guess) and has little effect on the final results. Now if you have stats showing something more like over 5% across the country I would rethink my position.
While the current voting system in the US is not perfect, it does work well. Any big changes in that system should be fully scrutinized and repeatedly tested. Big changes at a large monetary cost with minor rewards and the great peril of having untrusted election results is not a sound direction to head. While touch screen voting might come along someday IMO the technology is not ready today or for the foreseeable future.
Thank you again for your well crafted response. While I disagree with a few of your points it is appreciated.
My suggestion.....if you've got a buddy who's a Gentoo guru, you should run Gentoo because you've got a support system and someone to mentor you.
Agreed with one addition: a fast net connection (something other than dial up) is a very big plus. When I setup my latest Gentoo box I must of downloaded a few hundred megs. If you can bring your box someplace with a fast connection you can always:
emerge -f bigOldPackage
-f will fetch the packages for compiling later. Grabbing the "Package CD" helps too.
I left RH after they killed off their $80 per year RHN and started running Gentoo. Haven't looked back. Installing mplayer in one shot ("emerge mplayer") is a very cool thing.
Is that keyless entry only or completely free of mechanical keys (for both door and ignition)?
I guess the next question is how do you (or your mechanic) get in if your battery goes dead (and the hood latch is inside)? Are you stuck using a "slim jim" (if that even works)?
enter your car, and start it with just the key, the government may be to blame, but you need to be slapped.
Since some autos have a RFID chip in the key (that's required for starting) could these prepored jamming signals cause an auto not to start? Reading the article it seems that the guy couldn't get into his car. Does any standard car builder have an remote lock without a key lock? On the same vein does a factory alarm/lock system require the use of the remote transmitter with no bypass method like placing the key in the ignition within a preset time?
It seems a little shortsighted to solely depend on a remote transmitter to access an auto. Something I have yet to personally hear of, but suspect someone here has.
What is so wrong with "bubble sheets"? As I see it:
Pros:
Quick ballots counts. Since every vote is in a machine readable format every vote is electronically scanned and tallied.
Paper trail of every ballot. Since every ballot starts out on paper...
Lower cost per seat than proposed evoting systems. One or two bubble sheet scanners would be enough to handle even the largest voting sites and for a fraction of the cost of proposed touch screen systems. Assuming that bubble sheet systems are of equal price as touch screen systems (IMO a scanner/counter might cost less than a touch screen system) compare buying two scanner/counters or 20 to 30 touch screen systems. The bubble sheet readers win that one hands down.
Easier to setup. Bubble sheet scanners can be previously setup so that on site workers only have to plug it in to an electrical outlet and go. Add in a cell phone connection for remote monitoring. I guess you could even build in a DC power unit with a battery. IMO overkill but in case AC power is not readily available. The setup per unit should be equal or a bit less than touch screen systems, but since many more touch screen systems need to be set up per site the bubble sheet wins. It's a minor win over touch screen systems but is compounded since much fewer bubble sheet scanners need setting up.
More durable than proposed evoting systems. Touch screens can get ruined very quickly. Also the average user tends to be rougher on touch screens when they are starting to fail. Harder screen faces are more durable but can crack from abuse, like poor shipping or dropped during setup.
Easier to train poll workers than proposed evoting systems. The only thing the poll worker needs to know is how to tell the voter how to insert to ballot. No navigation questions or use issues. Most everyone here has had the misfortune of working with the most clueless user that would easily get confused on the simplest touch screen system. Considering that most poll workers are of an age where computer use is not second nature and this problem is compound.
Cons:
It's electronic and is bound to fail sometime. While IMO bubble sheet readers are more durable than mechanical voting booths the scanner/counter is bound to fail. The ballots would need to be rescanned. A serial number (tied to the ballot and not the voter) could check for incomplete electronic counts.
No instant native language support. The touch screen wins here. The bubble sheet method requires a poll worker to help the voter choose a ballot from ballots in different languages. IMO a minor issue.
Think of it like a paperback book. It's a format that's been around for hundreds of years because it's the best thing we have. While electronic books have been around for a few years and have some advantages, paperbooks are still better and, in turn, will still rule until something better comes along. As Chris Rock would say: "Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea." Just because we can vote on touch screens w/o a paper trail doesn't make it a good idea.
All active members of the US Armed Forces stationed anywhere in the world are bound by US Federal law. No exceptions. If caught something like this would get noted in your service jacket and could put a minor bump in a military career.
Clearly though unless someone finds out (oh say, the New York Times) nothing would happen. I suspect there's a hard drive hiding in someone's stuff waiting for the heat to cool down.
When it comes to doing illegal shit in the military always remember rule one: "What you see here, what you hear here, when you leave here let it stay here" (Once posted on the road out of Los Alamos) aka "Shut the fuck up".
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
It's pretty clear that RMS is against what's going on in Iraq (check out his web site) yet why hasn't he do something like this? Because the GPL contract is bigger than the mess in Iraq. IMO there are a lot more constructive things someone can do than quit a LUG. Linux is a hammer. It can be used to build a company, build a church or bash someone's head in. It's just a hammer and doesn't understand the idea of "good" and "evil". It's like blaming a dictionary for hate speech.
Under the GPL everyone deserves freedom, even those that do things that many do not like. That's freedom people. While not perfect the alternative is much worse.
I'm thankful for the line "Free as in speech."
Trolling has never been so much fun.
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SimChurch
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"Excuse me. I have a question: 'Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could
not eat it?'". - Paraphrased from Homer
First, I've loved Macs ever since my Mac Plus to the eMac sitting on my other desk. Macs in the office most of the time make sense. I won't rehash all the reasons why it's better than MS Windows.
From the article I gather they'll mostly run java and terminal applications, something that could run from almost any platform. If that's the case then Macs seem to be overkill. I see it two different ways:
It's a good move. If they realize what they have they'll get a couple of good cocoa programmers that will make some cool custom apps that will make things better. Hopefully users will have access to a range of applications allowing them to do new things and do old things quicker. IT staff costs should be a sizable amount less than MS Windows. Access to a Mac can sometimes really make a user's job easier and better.
It's a bad move. Overall hardware costs are likely more than twice the price of diskless X workstations and will have a much higher maintance cost. If they don't have an in house Mac tech that can make repairs downtime per seat could be weeks. Mac parts have always be much more than the PC world. If all they are going to see is a couple of java and terminal windows then the Mac's beautiful interface has been wasted. Depending solely on off the shelf applications is also a waste. Diskless X stations at less than $500USD per seat is less than any Mac. Lets not forget Apple's habit of using OS upgrades to push hardware sales.
Moral of story: In the right place (and there are many of them) using Macs in most offices are the way to fly. Creativity flows, stuff works and users are happy. Worth every extra penny. For places where users will only have access to two or three apps (like a call center) Macs are overkill.
Years ago I worked for the corp. office of a large hotel chain that moved from IBMs running 3270 terminals to Macs with the promise of saving atleast ten seconds off the average call (this would save them a lot). Users were given access to one custom app that sucked (not the Mac's fault) and call times actually went up over ten seconds per call. The project cost them millions with no chance of any ROI.
"Use a Mac" is not the answer to ever question. Macs are bad ass machines, come with some great apps like iMoive but are a waste in what seems to be a "vertical" market. Again, if the point is to give users access to a bunch of apps like Photoshop then get the Macs. If 99% of the user's time is spent on java/terminal apps then they have wasted their money.
Many, many offices that use MS Windows could really benefit by switching to Macs. IMO it's not a good thing to push Macs in places that they don't make sense.
It was a first person spaceship/shooting application that came buried in NW and I think was meant for "testing" IPX connectivity. Vector graphics, network play (of course), played well on a 386 and was under 30k. We played that thing for hours...
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the answers.
True. Sad but true. Well stated.
Arlo did something. Apple thought they could do it better
And I no doubt they could do better. But don't you think Mac users would like to hear Apple's side? I know they rarely comment on anything but it would be nice to hear something. Right now it looks like they played unfair, which could be true on not.
Apple does have a small history of mistreating some developers. Right now it looks like they did it again. I guess I expect more from Apple than the average company.
You said: "Oh, brother, not the 'Apple stole Konfabulator' bullstuff again."
Can you read? I made a point of saying that I didn't think Apple had stole anything and we didn't know there side. On a side note, "Konfabulator" wasn't the first to do what it does. My point is Apple might want to play nice with their developers.
You're an idiot.
Arlo Rose use to work for Apple in their Human Interface Design Center and took a voluntary layoff. He then started his own little company and later launched Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a theme rendering engine for Mac OS 7 to 9.1. Apple later turned out a similar application to Mac OS 8, "Appearance Manager", which took a dig into his possible user base. Some people decided against getting Kaleidoscope (with it's hundreds of themes) and waited for Apple to turn out more than one theme or at least the tools to create Appearance Manager compliant themes. Two additional themes floated around ftp servers for awhile but since Apple never officially released them they were difficult to find. Well, "Platinum" was the only theme ever released and many felt Apple "strung" users along so Kaleidoscope would die off. (There's a lot more to this story and this is just a quick overview.)
Fast forward to today. Apple will soon be releasing Mac OS 10.4 aka "Tiger" with a program called Dashboard (although Arlo claims that Dashboard won't be out until next year). Dashboard is an application that allows users to have small javascript apps on their desktop that will access their calendar, different style clocks, control iTunes and lots of different things. The problem is is that Arlo has had similar and very popular program out for a year and a half called Konfabulator. Dashboard and Konfabulator both use small javascript "widgets" to create desktop applications. To many it seems Apple once again has used it's position as the creators of Mac OS X to snuff out another programmer that has a popular addition to their OS.
I'm not saying that Apple stole anything or did anything legally wrong but IMO they should've tried to work with Konfabulator. Maybe they could've bought some limited rights or bundled a stripped down version instead of just stepping on it. To me many of MS's past tactics and Apple's in this case are quite similar, and IMO unfair.
(FYI: I only know what has be put out on the net about the Dashboard vs. Konfabulator issue. Maybe they did try to work something out and the deal didn't go through. Apple hasn't said much about it, not out of the norm for them.)
The only things I can think to add to the above list is a few lights, reflectors and high quality bags to carry everything. Spend a few hundred on the bags as cheap ones with fail within a month.
Going too cheap gets you local cable access results. A few extra dollars spent correctly goes a long ways and can give you a pro look.
With their R&D campus in India I wonder if part of the cost cutting will result from a transfer of jobs to there. There's a lot of very smart people there that can afford to live well on 1/3 of an US programmer's salary. From the business point of view it makes sense to make the move. Moral viewpoint: well that depends were you live I guess (good for India, bad for US workers).
Personally I don't mind that some other country gets US jobs so long as those people are treated fairly. The past has shown us that more times than not these workers aren't treated fairly at all.
Do you need Panther to use the Tiger upgrade or will any version of OS X work? Are the hardware requirements, both minimal and recommended, the same as Panther?
My comment was how it is noble to create something and immediately share the benefits with others. What you misinterpreted it as a negative comment ("Edison is bad") when it was a positive comment ("This guy is doing a noble thing").
Hrmmmm... So, you're saying that profit and capital gain from invention is evil? I see. Can you give me half your salary please?
Is your post part flamebait? Anyways, profit is not bad, profit is good. When profit is earned and not "awarded" because of government interference, like grants or subsidies, profit can show efficiency and ingenuity. Profit can show how healthy a company is. When a company creates profit and fairly shares that profit with the people that help made it, then everyone benefits. One just needs to look at Henry Ford as an example. While making a ton of money for himself he also paid his employees quite well and reduced their work week to five days. When he shared that wealth with his employees, they in turn purchased more goods and services, creating even more jobs. With more time off the travel and tourism industry exploded, creating even more wealth for more people. Henry Ford created the middle class in America. So no, profit is not bad. Truly earned profit is a good thing.
I have a problem with people that take more than their fair share, like Edison. Look at Walmart, a company that makes billions of dollars of profit while paying their full time employees so little many require welfare to survive. And who pays for that welfare? Taxpayers. The taxpayers are subsidizing Walmart's employee wages while the owners enjoy an unearned, outragious profit and IMO that's wrong. Make companies pay their employees a fair wage so taxpayers don't have to pick up the pieces. Companies should live and die without the support of the goverment. There are many, many companies out there today that treat their employess with respect, pay them well and they in turn create wealth for the owner(s). Look at companies where the average employee time with the company is measured in decades and I'll show you capitalism that benefits eveyone.
Capitalism is good. Profit is good. Greed is bad. Isn't it?
I love Open Source software, but not out of some RMS-style people's democratic republic-- but out of the superior model it provides for development of code, and money.
As for OSS I completely agree. Go with what does the job. OSS is not a religion, it's a tool. A tool that makes sense many times over closed source products so long as it's useful. I really have no idea why you even mentioned it since my post was only about Edison. Are you frustrated about something and feel the need to lash out at anyone you see?
I completely agree. He can up with a wide range of inventions that made a very big difference in the world. He also was a shameless self promoter who did things like invent the "electric chair" solely to prove how "dangerous" his competitor's rival electrical standard (Nikola Tesla's AC) was compared to his DC.
Edison was notorious for jealously guarding his patents and squeezing them for every dollar he could. This man is a much better human being.
While selling these to developing countries is nice I could see businesses wanting some to. In some ways this could really dig into HP's bottom line. Imagine if you bought a new car and got free use of up to three rentals cars anytime you wanted, would you buy a second car? Most likely not.
Home use would also be a big plus. Many parents would love to be able to have two or more kids use one computer at the same time.
While the concept has serious flaws (imagine someone trying to render a Xvid video while the other three are in openoffice(1)) it definitely has it's place in the classroom, office or home.
(1. Yes, I know that you can automaticly nice out any user's job, but you see my point.)
Ballots and ballot books
Paper audit ballots, or in other words, a printed ballot that comes from the terminal and is in fact the actual "ballot" that you are turning in, is really the only way that e-ballots are going to work.
I like your idea on the surface and I agree that touch screen voting can simplify and offer greater flexibility compared to preprint ballots and preprinted ballot books. An idea I had was that the optical mark reader could also have a laser printer (driven by a separate SBC) built in that could print out different ballots and ballot books (say for different languages). The ballots could be postscript files and have a MD5 checksum to try to insure against tampering. The MD5 sum could also appear as some kind of watermark. To access the ballots a poll worker would just select a clearly marked key on something like PI Engineering's x-keys key strip (sans keyboard as in the picture).
The problem is that it incorporates another layer of technology which can break down or be tampered with. Keeping voting as simple as possible will help guard against fraud. It's harder to fake a preprinted ballot with a true paper watermark than hacking a touch screen system or altering a postscript file.
Fraud reduction
While a different evoting system other than what I proposed could possibly help decrease fraud I see it as a moot point. I suspect [with the system you described] more legal voters would be turned away than fraud would be stopped. Also IFAIK the SCOTUS ruled that an identification card can not be required to vote. By a possible logical extension it would not matter if that ID card is produced by the voter or accessible by a poll worker, it might not be legally allowed. With the more information a poll worker has to use to verify one's identification, the greater chance a mistake could be made. You mention photo verification: in Arizona a driver's license is good for an ungodly amount of time, I think until one reachs a certain age like 65. There are people with a license good for the next 30 years. If the picture the poll worker uses to verify the voter is from the driver's license (which is most likely) it could be of little use and possible be used to disqualify legitimate voters. The current system of checking a name and asking for an address for verification is hardly perfect but currently strikes a good balance between cost and vote integrity.
My point is IFAIK voter fraud is rare (less than 1% I'd guess) and has little effect on the final results. Now if you have stats showing something more like over 5% across the country I would rethink my position.
While the current voting system in the US is not perfect, it does work well. Any big changes in that system should be fully scrutinized and repeatedly tested. Big changes at a large monetary cost with minor rewards and the great peril of having untrusted election results is not a sound direction to head. While touch screen voting might come along someday IMO the technology is not ready today or for the foreseeable future.
Thank you again for your well crafted response. While I disagree with a few of your points it is appreciated.
Agreed with one addition: a fast net connection (something other than dial up) is a very big plus. When I setup my latest Gentoo box I must of downloaded a few hundred megs. If you can bring your box someplace with a fast connection you can always:
emerge -f bigOldPackage
-f will fetch the packages for compiling later. Grabbing the "Package CD" helps too.
I left RH after they killed off their $80 per year RHN and started running Gentoo. Haven't looked back. Installing mplayer in one shot ("emerge mplayer") is a very cool thing.
I guess the next question is how do you (or your mechanic) get in if your battery goes dead (and the hood latch is inside)? Are you stuck using a "slim jim" (if that even works)?
Since some autos have a RFID chip in the key (that's required for starting) could these prepored jamming signals cause an auto not to start? Reading the article it seems that the guy couldn't get into his car. Does any standard car builder have an remote lock without a key lock? On the same vein does a factory alarm/lock system require the use of the remote transmitter with no bypass method like placing the key in the ignition within a preset time?
It seems a little shortsighted to solely depend on a remote transmitter to access an auto. Something I have yet to personally hear of, but suspect someone here has.
Pros:
Quick ballots counts. Since every vote is in a machine readable format every vote is electronically scanned and tallied.
Paper trail of every ballot. Since every ballot starts out on paper ...
Lower cost per seat than proposed evoting systems. One or two bubble sheet scanners would be enough to handle even the largest voting sites and for a fraction of the cost of proposed touch screen systems. Assuming that bubble sheet systems are of equal price as touch screen systems (IMO a scanner/counter might cost less than a touch screen system) compare buying two scanner/counters or 20 to 30 touch screen systems. The bubble sheet readers win that one hands down.
Easier to setup. Bubble sheet scanners can be previously setup so that on site workers only have to plug it in to an electrical outlet and go. Add in a cell phone connection for remote monitoring. I guess you could even build in a DC power unit with a battery. IMO overkill but in case AC power is not readily available. The setup per unit should be equal or a bit less than touch screen systems, but since many more touch screen systems need to be set up per site the bubble sheet wins. It's a minor win over touch screen systems but is compounded since much fewer bubble sheet scanners need setting up.
More durable than proposed evoting systems. Touch screens can get ruined very quickly. Also the average user tends to be rougher on touch screens when they are starting to fail. Harder screen faces are more durable but can crack from abuse, like poor shipping or dropped during setup.
Easier to train poll workers than proposed evoting systems. The only thing the poll worker needs to know is how to tell the voter how to insert to ballot. No navigation questions or use issues. Most everyone here has had the misfortune of working with the most clueless user that would easily get confused on the simplest touch screen system. Considering that most poll workers are of an age where computer use is not second nature and this problem is compound.
Cons:
It's electronic and is bound to fail sometime. While IMO bubble sheet readers are more durable than mechanical voting booths the scanner/counter is bound to fail. The ballots would need to be rescanned. A serial number (tied to the ballot and not the voter) could check for incomplete electronic counts.
No instant native language support. The touch screen wins here. The bubble sheet method requires a poll worker to help the voter choose a ballot from ballots in different languages. IMO a minor issue.
Think of it like a paperback book. It's a format that's been around for hundreds of years because it's the best thing we have. While electronic books have been around for a few years and have some advantages, paperbooks are still better and, in turn, will still rule until something better comes along. As Chris Rock would say: "Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea." Just because we can vote on touch screens w/o a paper trail doesn't make it a good idea.
I'll go back to my cave now. =)
"Homely that child is".
Clearly though unless someone finds out (oh say, the New York Times) nothing would happen. I suspect there's a hard drive hiding in someone's stuff waiting for the heat to cool down.
When it comes to doing illegal shit in the military always remember rule one: "What you see here, what you hear here, when you leave here let it stay here" (Once posted on the road out of Los Alamos) aka "Shut the fuck up".
Hasn't this guy heard of "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish? Let's hope his sake they skip the last one.
Under the GPL everyone deserves freedom, even those that do things that many do not like. That's freedom people. While not perfect the alternative is much worse.
I'm thankful for the line "Free as in speech."
"Excuse me. I have a question: 'Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?'". - Paraphrased from Homer
But you're not running Quartz Extreme which makes a big difference in speed.
From the article I gather they'll mostly run java and terminal applications, something that could run from almost any platform. If that's the case then Macs seem to be overkill. I see it two different ways:
It's a good move. If they realize what they have they'll get a couple of good cocoa programmers that will make some cool custom apps that will make things better. Hopefully users will have access to a range of applications allowing them to do new things and do old things quicker. IT staff costs should be a sizable amount less than MS Windows. Access to a Mac can sometimes really make a user's job easier and better.
It's a bad move. Overall hardware costs are likely more than twice the price of diskless X workstations and will have a much higher maintance cost. If they don't have an in house Mac tech that can make repairs downtime per seat could be weeks. Mac parts have always be much more than the PC world. If all they are going to see is a couple of java and terminal windows then the Mac's beautiful interface has been wasted. Depending solely on off the shelf applications is also a waste. Diskless X stations at less than $500USD per seat is less than any Mac. Lets not forget Apple's habit of using OS upgrades to push hardware sales.
Moral of story: In the right place (and there are many of them) using Macs in most offices are the way to fly. Creativity flows, stuff works and users are happy. Worth every extra penny. For places where users will only have access to two or three apps (like a call center) Macs are overkill.
Years ago I worked for the corp. office of a large hotel chain that moved from IBMs running 3270 terminals to Macs with the promise of saving atleast ten seconds off the average call (this would save them a lot). Users were given access to one custom app that sucked (not the Mac's fault) and call times actually went up over ten seconds per call. The project cost them millions with no chance of any ROI.
"Use a Mac" is not the answer to ever question. Macs are bad ass machines, come with some great apps like iMoive but are a waste in what seems to be a "vertical" market. Again, if the point is to give users access to a bunch of apps like Photoshop then get the Macs. If 99% of the user's time is spent on java/terminal apps then they have wasted their money.
Many, many offices that use MS Windows could really benefit by switching to Macs. IMO it's not a good thing to push Macs in places that they don't make sense.
It was a first person spaceship/shooting application that came buried in NW and I think was meant for "testing" IPX connectivity. Vector graphics, network play (of course), played well on a 386 and was under 30k. We played that thing for hours ...