If the code base is small enough for someone to actually perform a review, that is fine. The problem here is that the systems are huge and performing a comprehensive review is not practical on a hundred thousand plus lines of code.
There's a warning sign right there. Why should these systems be "huge"? They only have to perform a very simple task. If you're using a complex system to do that, then that demonstrates that there's stuff in there that doesn't need to be, and could cause problems.
Touchscreen, vote, hit done, the machine prints a paper ballot. You review said ballot and deposit the paper ballot in the ballot box.
So, why even use the computer in the first place, if you're going to be counting paper anyway? Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and more reliable to use pencil and paper?
What could be simpler and less prone to manipulation or error?
Marking a ballot manually with a pencil?
I'm not sure why you think this won't be prone to error. I'd bet that at least 50% of people won't even look at the printout. It could say "I vote to be enslaved by Satan" and they'll just blindly place it in the ballot box. At least with a manual method, the voter actually has to make the marks in the first place, rather than relying on a machine.
As for simple, many people find even the simplest of computers confusing. Just the presence of a machine is enough to intimidate some people and make them think funny. So, in that respect, it's a lot simpler to use manual voting than to train people to overcome their technophobia. There's also a lot more maintenance and infrastructure involved in a computer-based solution. Even the most foolproof machines are going to require a complex technical support network when you think about the scale and importance of elections.
athloi sends word of an expansion of the US-VISIT program that now requires two fingerprints from foreign visitors arriving at scores of airports.
That's a pretty impressive feat - to arrive at multiple airports at the same time. Generally humans can only arrive in one place at a time. Have the evil terrorists developed some sort of cloning, or is this more of a space-time wormhole type deal? The authorities should probably start looking out for blue police boxes making funny "wooga wooga" sounds.
If you think lossless compression is impossible, then you don't understand the difference between compression and encoding resolution (fidelity).
If you took my comment at face value, then you clearly don't understand the difference between sarcasm and earnestness. I'd go further and say that you also don't understand slashdot, or written discourse in general.
It was my understanding that Blade Runner did use CGI. I once had the Lightwave models for one of the opening scenes (car flying around the building).
Somehow, I doubt it. Bladerunner was released in 1982, and began production before that.
As for Lightwave, it was based on software created in 1988:
In 1988, Allen Hastings created a rendering and animation program called Videoscape, and his friend Stuart Ferguson created a complementary 3D modeling program called Modeler, both sold by Aegis Software. It is these two programs that would evolve into what would eventually be known as LightWave 3D.
But didn't become a commercial product until 1990:
In 1990, the Video Toaster suite was released, incorporating LightWave 3D, and running on the Commodore Amiga computer. At the time of its release, the Video Toaster was priced at $1499. Some critics in the industry noted that the feature set of Lightwave made it worth the price of the Video Toaster alone.
Moreover, even in 1990, Lightwave wasn't capable of effects in film resolution. It was capable of semi-convincing TV graphics at best.
I'm not sure how someone's sense of technology history gets so out of whack they can even begin to entertain the possibility that Blade Runner was done with computer graphics. Really, it's amazing that someone believes they have "the Lightwave models from Blade Runner." Who convinced you of that?
Probably because I don't accept the myth that the FBI is a collection of mindless automatons running around putting innocent people in jail for the entertainment of their bosses.
If that's true, then why aren't the FBI speaking out against their bosses? Because this government obviously wants to torture people and lock up those with different political opinions. Anyone who is not a mindless automaton would not continue to work for this government.
Lazy, ignorant, apathetic, disillusioned, or any combination thereof.
But what if you are not any of the above, and it's just that none of the candidates appeal to you? You seem to be saying there is something wrong with not voting for anybody. But what if there is not anybody worth voting for? Voting for somebody bad would be worse than not voting for anybody at all.
So by not doing anything (like voting), people are, whether directly or indirectly, promoting bad government.
But they are also promoting bad government by voting for any of the candidates. So, what are they to do?
The choice to not vote is still a choice, and we are accountable for our choices.
So tell me, what exactly are the people who didn't vote accountable for? Not liking any of the candidates?
And if enough people understood that the two party system is what is holding us back, people would work to change it.
I think plenty of people understand it. But how do you change it? The two party system excludes anybody from other parties. So, how do you vote for an alternative, when nobody from one of the two parties will support that alternative? the only way would be to get a third party elected - which the two-party system prevents.
So once again, you can't blame it on those bastards in Washington D.C. Those bastards are there because we willed it.
Bullshit. Why are they blameless? I can certainly blame them for being bastards. There's plenty of blame to go around. It's true, it's not just them. But why can't I blame them for their actions?
Also, it's not true that people really willed this into existence. I don't think many people actually wished for a fucked up government and a two-party system. That already existed before most of us came along. The point is that you can't blame everybody, because not everybody wished for that, and some people opposed it. How am I to blame if my neighbor votes for a corrupt politician? I can't force my neighbor to vote the way I'd like him to.
Is someone born into a totalitarian dictatorship to blame for the dictator being in power?
Not fuck what up? Taking a report from someone at a university who finds a set of traits and activities of a particular person suspicious and then following up said report with an investigation of the circumstances behind the "suspicious" information? "Hey, why did you work late in the lab last week?" "I had to get some work done." "Really?" "Yeah." "Okay, thanks. Good luck with the project!"
That's optimistic. The procedure would probably be more like: Place them under surveillance at home and at work. Perhaps arrest the person. Perhaps slap them around a bit. If they are Arab, perhaps go a bit "Jack Bauer" on them, or have them "disappeared" to Egypt or Syria for interrogation.
What makes you think they would be so nice? What makes you think they would never go after an innocent person?
In the U.S.A., our government is a direct reflection of the votes of the people in the country
Actually, it's not. You can onlhy vote for candidates and parties. You don't actually vote on the issues you want to vote on. If you don't agree with "the whole package" of a candidate, you don't really get a say. You might, say, vote Republican because you are a "fiscal conservative" - but your vote might be interpreted as a vote for the Religious Right, or an anti-gay agenda - even if you disagree with those aspects. Alternatively, you might vote Democrat because they're "not as bad as Republicans" - but that doesn't mean you voted for Democrats supporting a war in Iraq.
It's not a very direct reflection at all. In fact, it's a very distorted reflection, because the most extreme wedge issues tend to drive voters and politicians - not the mainstream beliefs that most hold. US politics is more a reflection of the lobbying powers of the monied classes, and the efforts of splinter groups.
So what you're really saying is that your whole country sickens you.
Both are analog holes. If it's not a digital copy, it's not a quality copy,
This is clearly nonsense. It's entirely possible to make a quality analog recording. How do you think they made music recordings before digital audio? That's right, they used analog magnetic tape, which can asound much better than the digital audio on a CD. How do you think they made those "digitally remastered" CD editions of Dark Side of the Moon? They used the analog master tapes, of course.
Likewise, motion picture film is ana analog medium, and it has far greater quality than even digital High Definition video can manage. Long story short, digital is not always superior to analog - and with the proper techniques, an analog copy can be extremely good quality.
You just hit me with friendly fire, I'm a Mac user just like you.
I don't see what bearing that has on the argument. "Friendly fire"? Your argument is just as faulty whether you are a Mac user or not.
I'm talking about the regular people who use Macs, not the professionals.
So am I. Did you miss the whole part where I talked about the literacy of "average" users and newbies? Seriously - compare a random Mac newbie to a random Windows newbie. Chances are that the Mac newbie is more capable, and has a better understanding of the concepts.
In a way, you confirmed this yourself - there's a much stronger chance that a Mac user has experience with other platforms. However, it is common for Windows users to have never been exposed to anything other than Windows. So, they don't tend to learn fundamental concepts, they learn "how Windows does stuff."
That there's no way shape or form that there's more Mac users using Firefox than there are using the built in Safari.
I'd say it's probably close to 50/50 - somewhere between 30 and 45%. My workplace's standard browser is Firefox, for Mac and Windows. Hardly any users here fire up Safari. Other places are different, but it's still very popular. But, of course, I never said that. I said there were probably a greater proportion of Mac users using Firefox, than the proportion of Windows users using Firefox. Most still use Internet Explorer.
In order for that to be so there'd have to be more computer literate people using Macs then there are using PCs.
Firstly, that doesn't follow logically. Just because someone is technically literate, doesn't mean they will automatically prefer Firefox. Many literate users are perfectly happy with Safari. Secondly, I would say there are a greater proportion of computer literate people using Macs. There is no hard evidence on this, but it doesn't take long, if you observe large numbers of Mac and Windows users (as I do) to conclude that the overall standard of literacy is much higher among Mac users.
Nonsense. People get shit shipped everywhere, even when they don't need to, because of that "competition." People have stuff shipped across the globe just to save a few bucks on eBay. There's no way that has no environmental impact.
You are also making the mistake of comparing vastly different services. Global delivery is far more distributed in both time and place. Garbage trucks are intensely local, and they don't have as many options in distributing their times of operation. Either you have garbage trucks annoying the neighborhood every single day, or you have ten garbage trucks trying to serve a single area on the same day. Either way it's pretty dumb.
DELL and Microsoft are eating, breathing, sleeping, walking: just with one mission, to destroy the hated Apple! It's a war! Buy more Apple gear to help Apple win the war!
Except I never said anything like that. Can you point out where I did?
It's a war! Buy more Apple gear to help Apple win the war!
Uhh, no. Nothing I said implies anything like that. What I actually said was that the companies like Dell are the ones who "declare war," and feel they need to win. I said quite the opposite - that Apple doesn't need to win any war to be successful.
Pathetic
Yeah, it is rather pathetic putting words in someone's mouth like you did.
Obviously you have been missing out on all the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" advertisements that Apple has been running recently. For
No, I haven't. Firstly, they are quite recent, while the post I was responding to said that it was all extreme under Jobs. Secondly, they aren't "extreme" - they are simply quirky. The tone is very laid back and sedate. I'm not sure how that translates into "extreme." That sounds more like a Pepsi or Dell ad to me.
That would be fantastic; I would choose one of the 10 companies to pick up my trash.
I don't think you'd be so thrilled when there are massive traffic jams, because there are 10 times as many garbage trucks on the road, competing for space.
Seems like a huge waste to me, the exact opposite of efficient allocation of resources. Large environmental impact, too, all that extra fuel being consumed. Lots of money being wasted employing more garbage collectors than are needed. Why do you assume it would be cheaper?
Slashdot Mirror
There's a warning sign right there. Why should these systems be "huge"? They only have to perform a very simple task. If you're using a complex system to do that, then that demonstrates that there's stuff in there that doesn't need to be, and could cause problems.
Ever heard of the "KISS" principle?
So, why even use the computer in the first place, if you're going to be counting paper anyway? Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and more reliable to use pencil and paper?
What could be simpler and less prone to manipulation or error?Marking a ballot manually with a pencil?
I'm not sure why you think this won't be prone to error. I'd bet that at least 50% of people won't even look at the printout. It could say "I vote to be enslaved by Satan" and they'll just blindly place it in the ballot box. At least with a manual method, the voter actually has to make the marks in the first place, rather than relying on a machine.
As for simple, many people find even the simplest of computers confusing. Just the presence of a machine is enough to intimidate some people and make them think funny. So, in that respect, it's a lot simpler to use manual voting than to train people to overcome their technophobia. There's also a lot more maintenance and infrastructure involved in a computer-based solution. Even the most foolproof machines are going to require a complex technical support network when you think about the scale and importance of elections.
That's a pretty impressive feat - to arrive at multiple airports at the same time. Generally humans can only arrive in one place at a time. Have the evil terrorists developed some sort of cloning, or is this more of a space-time wormhole type deal? The authorities should probably start looking out for blue police boxes making funny "wooga wooga" sounds.
If you took my comment at face value, then you clearly don't understand the difference between sarcasm and earnestness. I'd go further and say that you also don't understand slashdot, or written discourse in general.
Damn, I guess we'll have to wait a decade or two until the superhumans of the future manage to achieve the impossible task of lossless compression.
Somehow, I doubt it. Bladerunner was released in 1982, and began production before that.
As for Lightwave, it was based on software created in 1988:
In 1988, Allen Hastings created a rendering and animation program called Videoscape, and his friend Stuart Ferguson created a complementary 3D modeling program called Modeler, both sold by Aegis Software. It is these two programs that would evolve into what would eventually be known as LightWave 3D.But didn't become a commercial product until 1990:
In 1990, the Video Toaster suite was released, incorporating LightWave 3D, and running on the Commodore Amiga computer. At the time of its release, the Video Toaster was priced at $1499. Some critics in the industry noted that the feature set of Lightwave made it worth the price of the Video Toaster alone.Moreover, even in 1990, Lightwave wasn't capable of effects in film resolution. It was capable of semi-convincing TV graphics at best.
I'm not sure how someone's sense of technology history gets so out of whack they can even begin to entertain the possibility that Blade Runner was done with computer graphics. Really, it's amazing that someone believes they have "the Lightwave models from Blade Runner." Who convinced you of that?
People were wrong.
If that's true, then why aren't the FBI speaking out against their bosses? Because this government obviously wants to torture people and lock up those with different political opinions. Anyone who is not a mindless automaton would not continue to work for this government.
But what if you are not any of the above, and it's just that none of the candidates appeal to you? You seem to be saying there is something wrong with not voting for anybody. But what if there is not anybody worth voting for? Voting for somebody bad would be worse than not voting for anybody at all.
So by not doing anything (like voting), people are, whether directly or indirectly, promoting bad government.But they are also promoting bad government by voting for any of the candidates. So, what are they to do?
So tell me, what exactly are the people who didn't vote accountable for? Not liking any of the candidates?
And if enough people understood that the two party system is what is holding us back, people would work to change it.I think plenty of people understand it. But how do you change it? The two party system excludes anybody from other parties. So, how do you vote for an alternative, when nobody from one of the two parties will support that alternative? the only way would be to get a third party elected - which the two-party system prevents.
So once again, you can't blame it on those bastards in Washington D.C. Those bastards are there because we willed it.Bullshit. Why are they blameless? I can certainly blame them for being bastards. There's plenty of blame to go around. It's true, it's not just them. But why can't I blame them for their actions?
Also, it's not true that people really willed this into existence. I don't think many people actually wished for a fucked up government and a two-party system. That already existed before most of us came along. The point is that you can't blame everybody, because not everybody wished for that, and some people opposed it. How am I to blame if my neighbor votes for a corrupt politician? I can't force my neighbor to vote the way I'd like him to.
Is someone born into a totalitarian dictatorship to blame for the dictator being in power?
That's optimistic. The procedure would probably be more like: Place them under surveillance at home and at work. Perhaps arrest the person. Perhaps slap them around a bit. If they are Arab, perhaps go a bit "Jack Bauer" on them, or have them "disappeared" to Egypt or Syria for interrogation.
What makes you think they would be so nice? What makes you think they would never go after an innocent person?
Actually, it's not. You can onlhy vote for candidates and parties. You don't actually vote on the issues you want to vote on. If you don't agree with "the whole package" of a candidate, you don't really get a say. You might, say, vote Republican because you are a "fiscal conservative" - but your vote might be interpreted as a vote for the Religious Right, or an anti-gay agenda - even if you disagree with those aspects. Alternatively, you might vote Democrat because they're "not as bad as Republicans" - but that doesn't mean you voted for Democrats supporting a war in Iraq.
It's not a very direct reflection at all. In fact, it's a very distorted reflection, because the most extreme wedge issues tend to drive voters and politicians - not the mainstream beliefs that most hold. US politics is more a reflection of the lobbying powers of the monied classes, and the efforts of splinter groups.
So what you're really saying is that your whole country sickens you.Most people in America don't vote.
Your money has an HDMI port? Which currency is this, Sealand's?
This is clearly nonsense. It's entirely possible to make a quality analog recording. How do you think they made music recordings before digital audio? That's right, they used analog magnetic tape, which can asound much better than the digital audio on a CD. How do you think they made those "digitally remastered" CD editions of Dark Side of the Moon? They used the analog master tapes, of course.
Likewise, motion picture film is ana analog medium, and it has far greater quality than even digital High Definition video can manage. Long story short, digital is not always superior to analog - and with the proper techniques, an analog copy can be extremely good quality.
Like Kim Jong Il raping your daughters. You have been warned!
That would be totally awesome. I hate getting questions via email. Which is probably why my inbox is pointed to null.
I don't see what bearing that has on the argument. "Friendly fire"? Your argument is just as faulty whether you are a Mac user or not.
I'm talking about the regular people who use Macs, not the professionals.So am I. Did you miss the whole part where I talked about the literacy of "average" users and newbies? Seriously - compare a random Mac newbie to a random Windows newbie. Chances are that the Mac newbie is more capable, and has a better understanding of the concepts.
In a way, you confirmed this yourself - there's a much stronger chance that a Mac user has experience with other platforms. However, it is common for Windows users to have never been exposed to anything other than Windows. So, they don't tend to learn fundamental concepts, they learn "how Windows does stuff."
That there's no way shape or form that there's more Mac users using Firefox than there are using the built in Safari.I'd say it's probably close to 50/50 - somewhere between 30 and 45%. My workplace's standard browser is Firefox, for Mac and Windows. Hardly any users here fire up Safari. Other places are different, but it's still very popular. But, of course, I never said that. I said there were probably a greater proportion of Mac users using Firefox, than the proportion of Windows users using Firefox. Most still use Internet Explorer.
In order for that to be so there'd have to be more computer literate people using Macs then there are using PCs.Firstly, that doesn't follow logically. Just because someone is technically literate, doesn't mean they will automatically prefer Firefox. Many literate users are perfectly happy with Safari. Secondly, I would say there are a greater proportion of computer literate people using Macs. There is no hard evidence on this, but it doesn't take long, if you observe large numbers of Mac and Windows users (as I do) to conclude that the overall standard of literacy is much higher among Mac users.
Yeah, but my way is more efficient, I don't have to do any work! Why would I reply to those Nigerian scam emails anyway?
I don't need a qwerty keyboard to read email.
Nonsense. People get shit shipped everywhere, even when they don't need to, because of that "competition." People have stuff shipped across the globe just to save a few bucks on eBay. There's no way that has no environmental impact.
You are also making the mistake of comparing vastly different services. Global delivery is far more distributed in both time and place. Garbage trucks are intensely local, and they don't have as many options in distributing their times of operation. Either you have garbage trucks annoying the neighborhood every single day, or you have ten garbage trucks trying to serve a single area on the same day. Either way it's pretty dumb.
Well, would you care to elaborate? What, exactly, makes Apple advertisng more "extreme" than that of other companies?
Except I never said anything like that. Can you point out where I did?
It's a war! Buy more Apple gear to help Apple win the war!Uhh, no. Nothing I said implies anything like that. What I actually said was that the companies like Dell are the ones who "declare war," and feel they need to win. I said quite the opposite - that Apple doesn't need to win any war to be successful.
PatheticYeah, it is rather pathetic putting words in someone's mouth like you did.
No, I haven't. Firstly, they are quite recent, while the post I was responding to said that it was all extreme under Jobs. Secondly, they aren't "extreme" - they are simply quirky. The tone is very laid back and sedate. I'm not sure how that translates into "extreme." That sounds more like a Pepsi or Dell ad to me.
That was Smartline. This is Lateline.
I don't think you'd be so thrilled when there are massive traffic jams, because there are 10 times as many garbage trucks on the road, competing for space.
Seems like a huge waste to me, the exact opposite of efficient allocation of resources. Large environmental impact, too, all that extra fuel being consumed. Lots of money being wasted employing more garbage collectors than are needed. Why do you assume it would be cheaper?