Er... systems proposed call for the voter to SEE what's on the paper as part of the "paper trail".
If not, it's just as useless as no paper trail at all.
Example from the ACM:
Voting systems should also enable each voter to inspect a physical (e.g., paper) record to verify that his or her vote has been accurately cast and to serve as an independent check on the result produced and stored by the system.
I don't think the site is accurate, but just for comparison, you'd certainly be in or close to the 100 richest persons in my country (Uruguay - not even CEOs make that much here. The average salary for a CEO is 77.000 dollars!*).
Just for comparison, I'm the 889,428,940 richest person in the world! according to the site (that means 5/6ths of the population in the world is poorer than me? Ok, counting children and all that, I still can't believe it).
I live in Uruguay, we have a huge sales tax (23%), and some extra taxes on top of that (25% of my salary, although admittedly that covers medical care which is a huge cost in the US or so I hear).
And people still complain that most rich people find loopholes to evade taxes (undeclaring or under-declaring imports and buying lots abroad is one way).
Our system is also crappy and complex.
Well, I guess it might work, but look elsewhere for a good implementation:)
When they talk about "Vista Premium", they mean the Aero Glass interface, of course. And I'd be surprised if even 6% of Corporate PCs right now can support it (although it seems that the Intel GMA 950 chipset commonly found in all-in-one motherboards may support it)
From that website:
A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:
* A modern processor (at least 800MHz1).
* 512 MB of system memory.
* A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.
Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs
To get an even better Windows Vista experience, including the Windows Aero user experience, ask for a Windows Vista Capable PC that is designated Premium Ready, or choose a PC that meets or exceeds the Premium Ready requirements described below. Features available in specific premium editions of Windows Vista, such as the ability to watch and record live TV, may require additional hardware.
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
* 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor1.
* 1 GB of system memory.
* Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)2, Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.
* 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
* DVD-ROM Drive3.
* Audio output capability.
* Internet access capability.
I've been looking for a Vista Premium compatible notebook, and they're hard to find in my country.
I agree that it's odd marketing by Microsoft (having 6 Vista versions, and speaking of "Standard" and "Premium" in marketing)
About the antics of professional athletes' unions, I'm not certain if they should be condemned.
After all, they're the main performers in a very succesful show, but unless they're unionized, the shows' managers would certainly have the upper hand. I'd rather see the show's earnings fairly split between the managers and the performers.
There's also the problem with sports figures being treated as slave property sometimes (maybe not US sports, but see Soccer as an example, kids being treated as the club's property is a huge problem here in South America, although to be fair, clubs do make an investment in the kids.)
If you think sports figures earn too much... vote with your dollar and don't watch them.
One teacher would throw objects at her students' heads if they were talking when she didn't want them to (chalk, etc). When my girfriend caught flying chalk coming toward her head one day and threw it back she was sent home and told not to come back the next day.
LOL, you reminded me of a teacher I had, which used that same method (occasionaly throwing chalk at students caught talking instead of paying attention).
The way he used it, however, I didn't see it as offensive or dangerous, more like funny (we did have a laugh at the students' expense), and it was quite effective as a means to making us pay attention. He didn't overuse it, though, and that made it all the more effective (you could risk talking most of the time, but there was the chance of getting hit:) )
The other two (especially locking children in broom closets) seem very serious, and worthy of firing the teacher responsible.
Which Third World countries? Mine (Uruguay), and neighbouring Argentina, Chile and other South American countries not, certainly (although we're kind of "second world") - schooling is compulsory, and not only that, desired by poor parents as it's somewhere they can leave their children and they have one decent meal a day.
I'm sorry, I don't agree with you at all (and it's not that I haven't wanted to punish those kids sometimes).
You know why? Because I believe the root problem with most of those kids is not the kids themselves, but their parents.
There should be some way to discourage, disincentive or flat out make it impossible for people who are unfit for parenthood to have children - and at the same time, some education too - I've seen many posts here which state that the parent's don't know how to punish their children, and you know... they haven't been properly educated on how to raise children, basically they repeat whatever their parents and environment did or become self-educated in the best cases.
Steven Levitt's Freakonomics book is very enlightening, see the bit on abortion, it shows an interesting correlation between abortion and crime, but I don't know how we would go about causing a decrease in natality rates among those clearly unfit to raise a family.
I still find Microsofts' Enterprise Manager to be excellent, very intuitive.
I had to use Oracle's Java equivalent at uni a few times, and it was painfully slow and ugly (I've been told it has been re-done).
Re:What universe did this come from?
on
You Call This Agile?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Wow, and I'm constantly complaining to management about the computers we have (I'm talking Uruguay, Third World here, and some 1.7 Ghz PIVs and Celerons).
At least we get to 512 or even 1 Gb of RAM most of the time, as we believe it's critical for developers (we usually buy memory upgrades to lengthen the life of most PCs).
I think we'll donate to you next time:P instead of the other way round.
Excellent point. And I'd rather have religious events than marketing-created events (say, Father's Day), although most religious events have been slyly co-opted by now (see Christmas).
Though it would be very annoying for me to go through a church wedding (the local style, which is very formal, and requires going to some religious classes and such), it's very moving and makes for a much better event than a dry state wedding ceremony (I understand in the US you have different choices).
Although it is flamebait-ish, he raises a valid point IMO. I'd rather mod him up and spur discussion than mod him down (mod him up Interesting if you don't believe it's Insightful, or don't mod him at all).
I think you don't get it. Many people can't afford a computer. The cyber-cafés are probably not what you're envisioning, more like kiosks where you can rent a computer for a while.
If you couldn't afford a computer or internet access, you'd use them (I did for a long while).
Please, do yourself a favour and read the list of countries which this laptop is aimed at, and most comments here.
You might be surprised to learn many in the 3rd world (I live in Uruguay btw) do have enough to eat, but a computer is a very hefty investment (I earn U$ 300)
.
have a fundamental disconnect with the reality of the day to day life of a people who exist primarily at a subsistance level.
You know what many kids that are asking for money in the streets do over here? They go to a cyber-café (there are over 5000 cyber-cafés in 3.000.000 inhabitant Uruguay). Working mothers often leave kids for hours at a time in cyber-cafés instead of a nursery (much cheaper to pay 1/3rd of a dollar/hour which is the cybercafé cost).
I'd say it's you who's disconnected. I've been very often to neighbour Argentina, one of those buying 1.000.000 laptops, and I can say that, properly used, it would be a huge help for education.
someday the countries that supply food and raw materials to them today at bargain prices won't be there anymore.
This is something I believe to be a popular misconception.
They (We? I'm from Uruguay) DO provide the First World countries with bargain food in a roundabout way - by buying expensive manufactured or somehow processed or value added goods & services (even when most value adding can be a brand, IP, or marketing), profits from which then serves to finance subsidies to the food production of the first world countries - US and Europe produce lots of food, enough to feed themselves I think, and it's kept artificially cheap through subsidies. Hell, I had Danish potatoes today.
And the raw materials are in a similar way available because the 3rd world countries don't use them - see how much some raw materials (steel I think) are going up because China is starting to use more of them.
From my perspective (South America, Uruguay), all those numbers sound really bizarre (does healthcare really cost that much)?
Of course, I don't know the illness, but your dependant would probably be dead here, or being treated by the university doctors (there's a government-funded university hospital that would treat such cases for free, but with not a high expectancy).
Good to know about how much you can expect insurance to cover you (our system doesn't have insurance, but I might move to the US or Canada someday).
It also exposes some very tough questions about caring for the elderly or these rare diseases, if it's ethical to spend that much money on one person in detriment of many others, and where's the limit (especially if it's government-funded or somesuch). On one hand you have a liberal/free market stance (if it's his money or freely given, it's ok), but it also "feels" wrong sometimes (especially for elderly, vegetative cases, etc) in the ROI.
It's tough and of course easier to speak about others, but there are some cases I'd consider euthanasia. In your case, without knowing I can't say, but it's not the same spending that amount on a children (which I "feel" is OK) than on an elderly (where I'd consider euthanasia - and while it's not the same, I had to put down my favourite childhood dog after he had been run down by a bus, and while an expert vet had cured him - he had his jaw broken - he had severe brain damage leading to problems like he couldn't digest and had to be hand-fed pap, unexpected seizures, etc...)
"War of Emperium (abbreviated WoE), a battle between several guilds for castles in town, which give them access to dungeons and treasures that are not accessible to people who are not in the residing guild."
That's exactly what the university I'm studiying did: it realized that the public university (main competitor) was offering the "branch of mathematics" title (oddly, Computer Engineer) only, and that there is a lot of demand for the "pragmatic" title, so they (ORT University in Uruguay) offer both.
The "pragmatic" title (which is the one I'm gradating in, Licenciatura en Sistemas de Información - Information Systems would be a translation in english) has 0% unemployment.
I started the "branch of mathematics" course at the public university and realized I was not happy trying to solve multi-dimensional integration of functions (flunked twice), and found that I was better suited to the other course, happily.
Both careers are quite good in preparing students, both offer Software Engineering and two obligatory projects where you have to do the entire development process (the public university also offers a Software Engineering course, but not as thorough).
I'm sorry to see someone go, Slashdot's strength to me is getting comments "straight from the horse's mouth" and of course the network effect.
I've seen lots of Sony-bashing on the site (and Bush-bashing, Microsoft-bashing... bashing in general heh), but I find that the comments with high moderation are usually worth reading - they shed light on either the facts or arguments for or against.
See this story, for instance: most of the +5 comments show that Slashdot readership (unlike some editors) clearly understands the issue.
If you're leaving as protest against the editors, I can understand, as staying validates their opinions (even if you protest later), but it leaves the remaining readers poorer for it.
I digress, but this shows that Digg was not far off in allowing user-moderated stories - I don't like the comments system and layout, and I like having editors, but I wish Slashdot could try and improve on Digg's strengths (maybe moderation on the stories themselves, and some other asked-for changes in the moderation system. The new comments layout I really like).
You wouldn't believe the places India has begun to outsource... I live in such a place:
Montevideo, Uruguay -- The New Yorker once ran a cartoon by Peter Steiner of two dogs, with one sitting at a computer keyboard saying to the other, ''On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.''
Nobody also knows you're Uruguay.
A tiny country of three million people, wedged between Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay has come from nowhere to partner with India's biggest technology company, Tata Consultancy Services, to create in just four years one of the largest outsourcing operations in Latin America.
Yes, when Tata's Indian employees in Mumbai are asleep, its 650 Uruguayan engineers and programmers now pick up the work and help run the computers and backroom operations for the likes of American Express, Procter & Gamble and some major U.S. banks -- all from Montevideo.
The firm runs on strict Tata principles, as if it were in Mumbai, so to see Uruguayans pretending to be Indians serving Americans is quite a scene. Said Rosina Marmion, 27, an Uruguayan manager, ''Our customers expect us to behave like Indians -- to react the same way.''
They might be holding back on mod points, I've seen some complaints that there were too many +5 posts and asking for a +6 or similar.
I used to get mod points a lot more frequently (up to the point that I couldn't use them, since I wanted to actually reply some times). Maybe I was meta-modded down:)
Slashdot Mirror
If not, it's just as useless as no paper trail at all.
Example from the ACM: Voting systems should also enable each voter to inspect a physical (e.g., paper) record to verify that his or her vote has been accurately cast and to serve as an independent check on the result produced and stored by the system.
http://www.acm.org/usacm/Issues/EVoting.htm
I don't think the site is accurate, but just for comparison, you'd certainly be in or close to the 100 richest persons in my country (Uruguay - not even CEOs make that much here. The average salary for a CEO is 77.000 dollars!*).
. asp?IDNOTA=11508&Tipo=Actualidad
Just for comparison, I'm the 889,428,940 richest person in the world! according to the site (that means 5/6ths of the population in the world is poorer than me? Ok, counting children and all that, I still can't believe it).
*URL:http://www.redtelework.com/PopUP_ImprimeNota
You mean something like this:
http://www.alzmedia.com/flash/view/yesandno
I live in Uruguay, we have a huge sales tax (23%), and some extra taxes on top of that (25% of my salary, although admittedly that covers medical care which is a huge cost in the US or so I hear).
:)
And people still complain that most rich people find loopholes to evade taxes (undeclaring or under-declaring imports and buying lots abroad is one way).
Our system is also crappy and complex.
Well, I guess it might work, but look elsewhere for a good implementation
They talk about "Vista Ready" and "Vista Premium Ready"
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/ca
When they talk about "Vista Premium", they mean the Aero Glass interface, of course. And I'd be surprised if even 6% of Corporate PCs right now can support it (although it seems that the Intel GMA 950 chipset commonly found in all-in-one motherboards may support it)
From that website:
A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:
* A modern processor (at least 800MHz1).
* 512 MB of system memory.
* A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.
Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs
To get an even better Windows Vista experience, including the Windows Aero user experience, ask for a Windows Vista Capable PC that is designated Premium Ready, or choose a PC that meets or exceeds the Premium Ready requirements described below. Features available in specific premium editions of Windows Vista, such as the ability to watch and record live TV, may require additional hardware.
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
* 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor1.
* 1 GB of system memory.
* Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)2, Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.
* 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
* DVD-ROM Drive3.
* Audio output capability.
* Internet access capability.
I've been looking for a Vista Premium compatible notebook, and they're hard to find in my country.
I agree that it's odd marketing by Microsoft (having 6 Vista versions, and speaking of "Standard" and "Premium" in marketing)
About the antics of professional athletes' unions, I'm not certain if they should be condemned.
After all, they're the main performers in a very succesful show, but unless they're unionized, the shows' managers would certainly have the upper hand. I'd rather see the show's earnings fairly split between the managers and the performers.
There's also the problem with sports figures being treated as slave property sometimes (maybe not US sports, but see Soccer as an example, kids being treated as the club's property is a huge problem here in South America, although to be fair, clubs do make an investment in the kids.)
If you think sports figures earn too much... vote with your dollar and don't watch them.
One teacher would throw objects at her students' heads if they were talking when she didn't want them to (chalk, etc). When my girfriend caught flying chalk coming toward her head one day and threw it back she was sent home and told not to come back the next day.
:) )
LOL, you reminded me of a teacher I had, which used that same method (occasionaly throwing chalk at students caught talking instead of paying attention).
The way he used it, however, I didn't see it as offensive or dangerous, more like funny (we did have a laugh at the students' expense), and it was quite effective as a means to making us pay attention. He didn't overuse it, though, and that made it all the more effective (you could risk talking most of the time, but there was the chance of getting hit
The other two (especially locking children in broom closets) seem very serious, and worthy of firing the teacher responsible.
Which Third World countries? Mine (Uruguay), and neighbouring Argentina, Chile and other South American countries not, certainly (although we're kind of "second world") - schooling is compulsory, and not only that, desired by poor parents as it's somewhere they can leave their children and they have one decent meal a day.
Close to 95% of eligible children are in primary school in my country. See for example: http://countrystudies.us/uruguay/42.htm
I'm sorry, I don't agree with you at all (and it's not that I haven't wanted to punish those kids sometimes).
You know why? Because I believe the root problem with most of those kids is not the kids themselves, but their parents.
There should be some way to discourage, disincentive or flat out make it impossible for people who are unfit for parenthood to have children - and at the same time, some education too - I've seen many posts here which state that the parent's don't know how to punish their children, and you know... they haven't been properly educated on how to raise children, basically they repeat whatever their parents and environment did or become self-educated in the best cases.
Steven Levitt's Freakonomics book is very enlightening, see the bit on abortion, it shows an interesting correlation between abortion and crime, but I don't know how we would go about causing a decrease in natality rates among those clearly unfit to raise a family.
I'm the poster of the above, I posted anonymously because I had alrady moderated the discussion.
I thought that posting anonimously would not affect previous moderations, but I was wrong. Sorry.
If anyone needs further translation, just ask.
I'm trying out MySQL's own administrator now, although admiteddly I haven't done anything besides adding a few permissions I needed:
/
http://www.mysql.com/products/tools/administrator
I still find Microsofts' Enterprise Manager to be excellent, very intuitive.
I had to use Oracle's Java equivalent at uni a few times, and it was painfully slow and ugly (I've been told it has been re-done).
Wow, and I'm constantly complaining to management about the computers we have (I'm talking Uruguay, Third World here, and some 1.7 Ghz PIVs and Celerons).
:P instead of the other way round.
At least we get to 512 or even 1 Gb of RAM most of the time, as we believe it's critical for developers (we usually buy memory upgrades to lengthen the life of most PCs).
I think we'll donate to you next time
I hope you're not in the US or Canada.
Unfortunately this seems very well thought out. I'd add that he doesn't have to be pious, just appear to be so.
I'll have to take a good look at The Prince I guess...
Excellent point. And I'd rather have religious events than marketing-created events (say, Father's Day), although most religious events have been slyly co-opted by now (see Christmas).
Though it would be very annoying for me to go through a church wedding (the local style, which is very formal, and requires going to some religious classes and such), it's very moving and makes for a much better event than a dry state wedding ceremony (I understand in the US you have different choices).
If you say so...
There's at least one believer with mod points :P
Although it is flamebait-ish, he raises a valid point IMO. I'd rather mod him up and spur discussion than mod him down (mod him up Interesting if you don't believe it's Insightful, or don't mod him at all).
I think you don't get it. Many people can't afford a computer. The cyber-cafés are probably not what you're envisioning, more like kiosks where you can rent a computer for a while.
If you couldn't afford a computer or internet access, you'd use them (I did for a long while).
You might be surprised to learn many in the 3rd world (I live in Uruguay btw) do have enough to eat, but a computer is a very hefty investment (I earn U$ 300)
I'd say it's you who's disconnected. I've been very often to neighbour Argentina, one of those buying 1.000.000 laptops, and I can say that, properly used, it would be a huge help for education.
This is something I believe to be a popular misconception.
They (We? I'm from Uruguay) DO provide the First World countries with bargain food in a roundabout way - by buying expensive manufactured or somehow processed or value added goods & services (even when most value adding can be a brand, IP, or marketing), profits from which then serves to finance subsidies to the food production of the first world countries - US and Europe produce lots of food, enough to feed themselves I think, and it's kept artificially cheap through subsidies. Hell, I had Danish potatoes today.
And the raw materials are in a similar way available because the 3rd world countries don't use them - see how much some raw materials (steel I think) are going up because China is starting to use more of them.
From my perspective (South America, Uruguay), all those numbers sound really bizarre (does healthcare really cost that much)?
Of course, I don't know the illness, but your dependant would probably be dead here, or being treated by the university doctors (there's a government-funded university hospital that would treat such cases for free, but with not a high expectancy).
Good to know about how much you can expect insurance to cover you (our system doesn't have insurance, but I might move to the US or Canada someday).
It also exposes some very tough questions about caring for the elderly or these rare diseases, if it's ethical to spend that much money on one person in detriment of many others, and where's the limit (especially if it's government-funded or somesuch). On one hand you have a liberal/free market stance (if it's his money or freely given, it's ok), but it also "feels" wrong sometimes (especially for elderly, vegetative cases, etc) in the ROI.
It's tough and of course easier to speak about others, but there are some cases I'd consider euthanasia. In your case, without knowing I can't say, but it's not the same spending that amount on a children (which I "feel" is OK) than on an elderly (where I'd consider euthanasia - and while it's not the same, I had to put down my favourite childhood dog after he had been run down by a bus, and while an expert vet had cured him - he had his jaw broken - he had severe brain damage leading to problems like he couldn't digest and had to be hand-fed pap, unexpected seizures, etc...)
In any case, thanks for sharing your experience.
I've heard Ragnarok Online does #2 to great success (I don't play it but have several friends who do. I might get sucked in after graduating :P )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnarok_Online
"War of Emperium (abbreviated WoE), a battle between several guilds for castles in town, which give them access to dungeons and treasures that are not accessible to people who are not in the residing guild."
That's exactly what the university I'm studiying did: it realized that the public university (main competitor) was offering the "branch of mathematics" title (oddly, Computer Engineer) only, and that there is a lot of demand for the "pragmatic" title, so they (ORT University in Uruguay) offer both.
The "pragmatic" title (which is the one I'm gradating in, Licenciatura en Sistemas de Información - Information Systems would be a translation in english) has 0% unemployment.
I started the "branch of mathematics" course at the public university and realized I was not happy trying to solve multi-dimensional integration of functions (flunked twice), and found that I was better suited to the other course, happily.
Both careers are quite good in preparing students, both offer Software Engineering and two obligatory projects where you have to do the entire development process (the public university also offers a Software Engineering course, but not as thorough).
I'm sorry to see someone go, Slashdot's strength to me is getting comments "straight from the horse's mouth" and of course the network effect.
I've seen lots of Sony-bashing on the site (and Bush-bashing, Microsoft-bashing... bashing in general heh), but I find that the comments with high moderation are usually worth reading - they shed light on either the facts or arguments for or against.
See this story, for instance: most of the +5 comments show that Slashdot readership (unlike some editors) clearly understands the issue.
If you're leaving as protest against the editors, I can understand, as staying validates their opinions (even if you protest later), but it leaves the remaining readers poorer for it.
I digress, but this shows that Digg was not far off in allowing user-moderated stories - I don't like the comments system and layout, and I like having editors, but I wish Slashdot could try and improve on Digg's strengths (maybe moderation on the stories themselves, and some other asked-for changes in the moderation system. The new comments layout I really like).
Slashdot has been losing ground according to Google http://www.google.com/trends?q=slashdot%2C+digg, but I hope it can reverse the trend.
Original (needs NYTimes subscription)
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F
Entire article lifted from the NY Times: http://indiaoutsource.livejournal.com/152693.html
The funny (or sad?) bit:
They might be holding back on mod points, I've seen some complaints that there were too many +5 posts and asking for a +6 or similar.
:)
I used to get mod points a lot more frequently (up to the point that I couldn't use them, since I wanted to actually reply some times). Maybe I was meta-modded down