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Slashback: Voting, Suing, Retiring 122

Slashback tonight brings you an update on Intel honcho Gordon Moore (whose famous observation will probably be written about in histories of the 20th century); more news on the state of 802.11 security; a word or three on Linuxgruven; and the odd link on election technologies to leave dimpled chads in the past.

What's the frequency, Kenneth? Maybe the analogies will just never stop, but Jethro73 points to this piece with "802.11's security issues compared to Swiss Cheese ...?"

The downside of all the attention being focused on the problems with 802.11 is that by the time there are some networks on my block to piggyback on, the holes will all be gone;)

Hopefully one of the last words here ... Rivendahl directs you attention to "this link to the StlToday.com web site giving a brief summary of a pending lawsuit against Linuxgruven.com, Inc. A bit of rumor says the owners cannot be found and perhaps fled. While I'd rather not report rumor, I would like to make sure the people Linuxgruven.com, Inc. has burned hear about them going down in flames and let them know also of the pending lawsuits. I don't know how much ex-employees may get out of it but at least spread the word, please. I know the teachers at Linuxgruven.com, Inc. teach their students to read /."

So it's time to put my Linuxgruven bumperstickers on eBay? Maybe they will mate with the LinuxOne distribution ...

Next year he'll be only half as old, though. cnkeller writes: "Gordon Moore has hit the maximum age of employment at Intel. As of May, he'll only be an honorary employee. Story here"

Please pick your poison; after that it's your fault. Erik Nilsson points to four informative articles about that which we Americans might prefer to hear nothing more about for a few years: voting, elections software, and Internet voting.

In 'No Easy Answers,' Lorrie Faith Cranor surveys elections technology, evaluates the prospects for Internet voting, and makes recommendations for action.

'Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?' examines the performance of existing systems, and considers the prospects for improvement.

In 'Sweden to Experiment with E-voting,' Anders Olsson reports on Sweden's current electoral experiments.

In 'System Integrity Revisited,' Rebecca Mercuri and Peter Neumann examine the reasons why current voting systems have failed. They call on computer professionals to contribute their expertise to an informed discussion."

The upshot is still that there are no easy answers to ensuring that elections are accurate and fair.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashback: Things, Stuff, Nonsense

Comments Filter:
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12, 2001 @04:16PM (#294742)
    I could set the building on fire by overclocking Amd Tbirds okay but that's the last straw
  • The 802.11 article used the term "script kiddy"! It would be while if that's the next net jargon term to see widespread use.
  • bmetz's law: The amount of people declaring Moore's law dead will double every 18 months.

    Of course we all know that it has to end sometime but I'm willing to bet it will hold true for the duration of my lifetime (50-70 years).

    Of course if you are easily amused I suggest you read news for the easily amused [getschooled.com]
  • U.S. Gov't-in-Exile: http://www.USGovernment-in-Exile.org

    Umm, a "government in exile" is a legitimate government which has been driven into exile because a rival government has seized power. Unless you have some reason I'm not aware of, nobody affiliated with your site has any legitimate claim to the government of the United States, and hence cannot claim to be forming a "government in exile." Al Gore perhaps could make his claim (though he would not), but just a bunch of random people cannot.
  • Look, I realize Intel has a bad rep for firing people who get too expensive (ie, anyone over 30 something, with stock options about to vest), but the guy's 72. Seeing as the usual retirement age is 55-65, a mandatory limit of 72 is not that bad, especially in the tech industry.
  • in 18 months, he'll be 144 . . .


    hawk

  • Somebody suggested that the voter be allowed to print a fake receipt that says anything you want.
  • The bumper stickers with Linuxgruven on them were not from Linuxgruven. They were from Linuxcare. Linuxgruven came up with the name after they saw the bumper sticker. I don't think Linuxcare was too happy about that.
  • by waldoj ( 8229 ) <waldo@@@jaquith...org> on Thursday April 12, 2001 @04:02PM (#294750) Homepage Journal
    Gordon Moore has hit the maximum age of employment at Intel. As of May, he'll only be an honorary employee.

    That's a shame -- his efficiency doubles every 18 months, I'm told. Think of all he could accomplish!

    Waldo
  • It leaves thing anti-democratic and unfair to all voters

    So if someone wins the popular vote, but their margin of victory nationwide is smaller than their margin of victory in New York City (i.e. New York City can override the will of the rest of the nation), that's democratic and fair?

    Of course the college isn't perfect. But I assert that direct voting would be worse.

  • FL2K is a great example.

    The GOP demanded accuracy, and the DNC cried "people are being cheated out of having their votes counted on a technicality! (unfair!)"

    The DNC demanded fairness, and the GOP cried "you're applying arbitrary standards to evaluate what is and is not a vote! (inaccurate!)"

    So it looks like you've summed up the situation pretty nicely.

  • Even if the election were completely fair, there would be no way to silence people who don't trust the system. Imagine the uproar in the last election multiplied 1000 times, for *every* election. That would be our nightmare.
  • by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Thursday April 12, 2001 @04:06PM (#294754) Homepage Journal
    Without a clear trail of accountability and easy auditing, nobody's going to trust it. It doesn't matter if the system is mathematically foolproof. The system needs to be simple in implementation because the dumbest voter needs to understand how it works. If the system is too complicated, then ignorant people won't trust it. Even a lot of smart people won't trust it.

    Don't let the problem with chads fool us into thinking that a good paper based system is impossible.

  • (warning -- this is a deliberate troll. I must be channeling Discordia this morning...)

    From the article: That's just dandy. We're effectively being told that ... we're not worthy of properly designed and implemented security. A flawed system is considered sufficient.

    Maybe the FBI is behind the security flaws in 802.11? This way, as the technology proliferates and everyone's got it in their home networks, they can spy (and even root around in) on everyone's computers from the comfort of their vans...

    Or am I just being paranoid?

  • I was surprised to see a full-page Linuxgruven ad in the latest issue of Linux Magazine. Are they still running ads?
  • I'm burning karma faster than a mir on re-entry, but I just had to say that I'm glad that some object, process, or idea has been given my name. You wouldn't believe the newspaper clippings I've collected about this whole "chad" fiasco. The political cartoons ("Dance of Satan's Chads", "Chad for brains") have been very self-affirming. Not-to-mention the wonderful phrases like "swinging-door chad" or "pregnant chad". My name has been embedded in the consciousness of America forever. I can laugh at this even more because I'm Canadian and we always get a kick out of laughing at you silly people south of us.

    Chad.

    Weee! Bring it on. I have enough karma in real life that I will gladly donate some of the electronic variety.

  • I just have to commend this post.

    Beautiful job, really.

  • Intel is one of the companies that takes seriously the things you do on your own time away from work.
  • it will never be internet voting because (even though I cant see this happening) they don't know someone is holding a gun to your head

    Then there will never be absentee ballots either.


    ---
  • If you'd actually read the law you're talking about, you'd see that having a compulsory retirement age is not illegal. There are restrictions placed around it, but I feel fairly certain that they are within those restrictions.

    Link to the actual law... [eeoc.gov]

    Quote: "Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to prohibit compulsory retirement of any employee who has attained 65 years of age and who, for the 2year period immediately before retirement, is employed in a bona fide executive or a high policymaking position, if such employee is entitled to an immediate nonforfeitable annual retirement benefit from a pension, profitsharing, savings, or deferred compensation plan, or any combination of such plans, of the employer of such employee, which equals, in the aggregate, at least $44,000."

    There's much much more, but that's just one example..

    ---
  • There is no federal civil rights statute that makes age discrimination illegal

    Wrong. How about "The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967"? It's been amended a few times, but it's still US Law.

    Age Discrimination is illegal. Mandatory Retirement is not necessarily Dicrimination, however. Read the thing (or skim it, it's long and dull).

    http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/adea.html [eeoc.gov]
    ---
  • No kidding. I have a Linuxcare linuxgruven bumper sticker on my VeeWee... but I am becoming ashamed to drive around with it because people may associate it with the LinuxGruven scam. Dammit.
  • No, you're not being paranoid. Just because cell phone encryption was crippled [wired.com] due to pressue from the NSA does not mean that 802.11 could be similarly compromised. No. Not at all...

    Why? Because the FBI would never spy on American citizens without a warrant! Just ask that Mr. Silly Pants J. Edgar Hoover!

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday April 12, 2001 @05:45PM (#294765)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • And I know of 20 to 30 year olds who now reside in nursing homes in South Florida due to strokes. And I'm not talking about people in poor health to start with, I'm talking people who jogged and didn't smoke! A stroke can hit anyone at anytime.
  • According to the Gordon Moore Bio [intel.com] on Intel's website, he was born on January 3, 1929 -- making him 72 years old.

    72 seems an odd age for mandatory retirement. Intel's mandatory retirement age is probably 70, but they let him slide a few years because he's a founder of the company.

    Jonathan Weesner
    Level D Flight Simulators using Linux at NLX Corp. [nlxcorp.com] That's my idea of FUN !!

  • Have a look, it's a collaborative writing library, where any group of person can write any sort of text (laws, constitution, petition, newspaper, poem...) using the most basic democratic principles.
    It offers a mix of participative (or direct) democracy and representative democracy.

    VVV Library [sourceforge.net] (I'm looking for a group willing to test drive it)
  • I think that's a bit niave. Yes, I definately agree it should be brought up when the industries say they need more foriegners brought in, shouldn't dump older folks because of their salary, etc. However, the science and engineering fields are expanding and do need more students, and if your trying to say we're all working for nothing and the industry really isn't expanding past killing off old people..

    Also, some people past retirement are able to become consultants, especially government scientists to their respective labs. This is very true for large scale projects, such as laser systems (ie, NIF at LLNL) where the head scientists/engineers must retire in the middle of the project. As their still badly needed afterwards, they can and do consult for about the same salary, and can help the labs afterwards. How far this goes for other scientists/engineers for companies, I'm not to sure.

    PS. the foriegners bit - I just meant it was pretty bad to fire all the cobal people, say "We need people badly!" and try as hard as they could but ended up just giving in and hiring them back temporarily. It was just pitiful on the industry's part.


    -----------------------------------------
  • Okay, that whole statement I agree with in entirety. And in no way was I foreigner bashing, as my example with unloading skilled professionals for cheaper fresh labor was wasteful.

    With graduates, I thought they usually make them sign contracts for a number of years they must work for. In any case, that case is a demand for labor which should help (temporarily) increase wages, which for any worker is a plus. To much of this could help flood the market, i guess.

    Retirement age should be at the point where the individual is incompitent/unable to perform their duties. There should also be something the worker could move into (ie, more of a desk job) if possible, rather then just forced out by the company due to age.


    -----------------------------------------
  • lol, i thought you meant forced retirement only, which is what I was refering to. Of course people should be allowed to retire when they wish to. I've known a number of people who've come out of retirement or are looking into going into it, as well as friends already starting IRAs in order to build up a nice nest egg.

    For example, I've seen professors with tenure retire, and then a few years begin at a new university, obtain tenure, and later retire.


    -----------------------------------------
  • Sounds like that /back title was taken from the RAMBUS company plan.

    "Voting": Rambus was a JEDEC member

    "Suing": SDRAM patent disputes

    "Retiring": With even Intel distancing themselves from RAMBUS, what else are they going to do? I don't think demand for Nintendo 64 Expansion Paks is too high nowadays, what with GAMECUBE [nintendo.com] on the way.

    < tofuhead >
    --

  • Making voting easier is only empowering the stupid (and by virtue of which, those apathetic to the future of our world).

    Yeah, the stupid, the niggers, the slit-eyed chinks, those evil breed-like-rabbits Latinos - how presumptuous of them to think that they should have the same rights as us clever people! And those Jews - contaminating our pure Aryan blood - what cheek! I hope you voted for Buchanan.

    Yes, okay, so IHBT. So f***ing what?

  • well, how about replacing it with this one [bcgreen.com]
    --
  • The truth is, there is no major flaw in our voting proccess. The situation down in Florida had nothing to do with a "broken system" as some would advocate. It has to do with people who are just simply stupid.

    Troll, stupidity, or ignorance? I'll assume the latter.

    The most disturbing parts of the Florida Fraud had nothing to do with the balloting procedures (as illegal and immoral as those procedures were). Thousands of people with clean criminal records were taken off the voting rolls in a purported purge of "felons" performed by a private company. Police roadblocks harassed blacks on their way to the polls.

    Fortunately, the laws of probability say that the inaccurasies will even out in the end.
    No. Not in a situation where certain areas are given technology known to undercount (both from usuablilty issues and physical failure), and others are given accurate vote tabulators.

    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

  • No one at Intel would have forced him out. If he had wanted to stay, he could have had the age changed. Clearly he wants to scale back his duties and concentrate on his foundation and being retired. Hitting the age is a good excuse to do this without alarming shareholders.
  • How hard is it to make your electronic voting system spit out a paper trail?

    Which is more reliable, a paper trail generated by a computing machine with limited options (if Bush print "BUSH"; if Gore print "GORE") or one generated by humans?

    I think we already have our control group.

    Make the voting software open source, and the smart people don't have to trust the system, they can trust their own eyes (or what other trustworthy smart people tell them the code says). The dumb people don't need a "reason" not to trust something, they'll make something up. That's why we call them dumb.
  • Demographic studies indicate that overweight people voted for Bush 2:1, so he got a larger share of America's sub-atomic particles, fatty tissue, and water.

    Democracy has finally arrived for America's quarks!
  • How is a mandatory retirement age any different that an "age of majority"? We apply many restrictions to those under that age, how is it any different when applied to the other end of the spectrum?
  • Then if 65 is "close enough to [insert xenophobic society of choice here]'s standards" why not have forced retirement, license revocation, et cetera at that point? Both ages are entirely arbitrary. I've not met many pre-18 year olds that consider themselves unworthy of said rights, nor any post-65 year olds.

    Why have we not seen many restrictions on post-65 year olds? Because the people who get to vote will pass 65, but they'll never be under 18 again.
  • Gordon Moore has hit the maximum age of employment at Intel. As of May, he'll only be an honorary employee.

    And then the Sandmen come to take him to Carousel.
  • by imac.usr ( 58845 ) on Thursday April 12, 2001 @04:36PM (#294783) Homepage
    Surely someone with his experience qualifies for this [headhunter.net] position.


    --
  • Hell, I have a tshirt. I think I might frame it. It sort of sums up the last 2 years.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Yo, dude. The sidebar said he was born on 3 Jan 1929, so he's 72, not 65.
  • Contrary to other posts, there is a federal law that prohibits age discrimination. See the EEOC page [eeoc.gov] on age discrimination.

    From that page:

    The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age. The ADEA's protections apply to both employees and job applicants. Under the ADEA, it is unlawful to discriminate against a person because of his/her age with respect to any term, condition, or privilege of employment -- including, but not limited to, hiring, firing, promotion, layoff, compensation, benefits, job assignments, and training.

  • Yes there must be an audit trail, yes machine-generated paper is good, but NO handing out receipts that show how you voted.

    The problem is the possibility of vote coercion - your boss/landlord/relative says they'll do something nasty to you unless you bring them a receipt from the polls that shows you voted the way they want you to. It doesn't matter whether the receipt has your name on it or not, as long as it shows how you voted, and it's hard to fake (and if it's easy to fake, it's not a useful receipt).
  • I don't think the key is understanding the system but trusting it. The important bit is that is as simple as use to possible, and makes at is as easy as possible for anyone who want to vote to vote. As long as people that the public trust understand it, and the informations on it's working is available for those inclined to look deeper, that would be good.
    I personally think there is an inherent problem in not representing those who feel that none of the choices represent them enough they would rather vote for no-one, but that's a different issue, though adding a box saying I don't want any of the above would at least yield some interesting figures.
  • Oh, come on. Mandatory retirement might make sense for people doing physical labor, and it might be harder for some of us over-40 geezers to pull all-nighters than it used to be, but there's no inherent reason to send us on Logan's Run when we hit 30, or 60, or 90. A lifetime of experience in technology may or may not be useful today, and is often more useful in management or research than in direct-product implementation, but some guy over 72 may have a lot more perspective on reality than some kid under 22, even if the kid _was_ a CEO for last year's failed dot-com.


    Also, I've done construction work with old guys. They don't move as fast as kids, and don't swing the hammer as many times, but somehow the nails go in the board a lot faster because they did it the way it needed to be done and put it in the places that need the nails most. And inexperienced workers can do a fine job with well-aged perfectly straight wood they bought at the hardware store, but when you're dealing with wood that might be a bit warped, or a bit green, or that you milled from real trees, or slate roofing where every piece of material is unique, you really want some old guy who's been building buildings on farms to be in charge. Sure, the old guys make _us_ haul the heavy stuff around, while they give it a little push here and stick a wedge under it there which cuts the work in half, and spend a while sharpening their tools just right instead of chopping away, and their attitude towards digging ditches often includes renting a backhoe for the rough work and doing the detail by hand, instead of all muscle or all machine, but don't go thinking it's time to throw _them_ out on the woodpile....

  • Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. Telling the public to trust the election results because they came from computers is far less credible than telling them to believe in the results of lever-style machines. Where computers have the potential to be really useful is to help track down anomalies in the process and find where to go look for the miscounted votes, stuffed ballot boxes, and run the manual counts on the machine-counted ballots that got confused by hanging chad or extra holes punched in by Demopublicans. It might not have mattered in Florida, where the Republican court maneuvers effectively kept most of the ballots from being successfully recounted, but that's where the processes need the most help.
  • Yeah, ok, that would be great.

    --
  • Think about it this way: If we have e-voting the people who run the servers can decide who gets to be president. I mean sure, security measures are suppose to prevent that, but hey.......

    Jon Sullivan
  • 1996 - The Satire:

    2001 - The Reality:

    Oh yes: "One of Bill's first programs was for making class schedules at his school. He devised it so he could share classes with the prettiest girls. He earned $4200 for this project."
    Read it at http://www.esllessons.com/lessons/reading/reading- discovery-gates.html [esllessons.com]

    This -- "person" -- is supposed to create a voting software that decides over America's future?

    I'M SCARED.

  • Hmm
    50*12/18 ~ 33, so it should double approximatly 33 times.
    2^33 ~ 8*10^9
    Even if there is only one person now who declares Moores law dead, we would still have to breed a few billion more people for your proposed law to hold for 50 years. It would probably be completely impossible if there is more than one person now :)

    /RS - Nitpicker extraordinaire.
  • Airline pilots are required by the FAA to retire at 60. Note that the age at which a pilot (not airline, just pilot in general) is no longer allowed to fly is determined by his ability to pass a medical exam, but for some reason the FAA believes that once an airline captain reaches the age of 60 they are somehow unsafe.
  • You would think that if you're going to post an article, you'd at least post the original instead of yahoo's interpretation of it...

    (I don't work for zdnet, but just feel they should've gotten the credit for it)

    Zdnet Link [zdnet.com]


    ---GEEK CODE---
    Ver: 3.12
    GCS/S d- s++: a-- C++++ UBCL+++ P+ L++
    W+++ PS+ Y+ R+ b+++ h+(++) r++ y+

  • Huh? What do you mean, a majority of the US, based on land area?

    As I said, election of the president is primarily a matter for the states. Bush won a majority of those states. His popularity crosses diverse cultures within the US. Florida is much different than Wyoming which is much different than Alaska which is much different than New Hampshire. OTOH, Gore carried urban dwellers primarily, and that's about it. People in a small area are naturally going to share concerns that people some distance away won't care (as much) about. When you put a million people in that small area, attention skews toward that area, even if concerns from 50 miles away are just as valid.

    If you want to know why people who live in cities count less than people in rural areas, its because the people, as individuals, don't matter when it comes to electing the president. The United States is a union of states, and it's these states that choose the president, not the people. The states have all individually decided to let their presidential vote be determined on the basis of a popular vote within the state, but that's a different issue. It hasn't always been this way, either.

    The two-house legislature we have in the US is designed as a compromise between large states and small states. Remember, in 1776 people saw themselves primarily as Virginians or New Yorkers, not as Americans. They knew that direct popular representation would lead to what is called "tyranny of the majority" with Virginia and New York basically telling the other 11 what to do. At the same time, it isn't fair to let a handful of people dictate to much larger masses. Thus the compromise.

    There's also the issue that rural folks speak on behalf of the natural resources they're closer to and more directly responsible for. If it were up to Chicagoans, they're probably pave the rest of Illinois for a parking lot. The rest of Illinois feels differently. Sure, Chicago may have more people than the rest of the state put together, but those people have very valid concerns as well.

    It's a purely practical issue, and I don't fault people in big cities for looking after their own. I look after my own, too. But if the system is going to be fair, it has to try to protect the minority at the same time that it performs the will of the majority. This kind of protection is built into the US by virtue of the enumeration in the two legislative houses, and as I already said, it's no coincidence that the number of EC votes matches this exactly.

    In fact, I think it's pretty clear that this implies EC votes ought to be awarded by district like it is in Nebraska. Too bad most states have a "winner takes all" system. In Iowa, for example, all 7 votes went to Gore when only 2 of the 5 districts went for him, IIRC.


    I have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.

  • Are you reading anything I write? Representation in Congress and the EC is a compromise between states' rights and people's rights. But regardless of how that representation is determined, EC votes are allocated based on state laws and thus the election of the president is a matter for the states, not the people. Nothing in the Constitution says that a popular election must be used to select the president. I can't put it much more plainly than this.


    I have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.

  • Election of the president is a matter for the states, not the people. Do you think it's merely coincidence that the number of electoral votes is exactly the same as the total number of representatives the state has in Congress? The federal Constitution nowhere says the states have to let the residents vote for president. The state legislatures, or the state governors, could decide how the state's votes would go.

    It's plain to see that the EC system works as it is. Look at any election map of the US to see how it voted. The majority of the states will be colored for the Republicans. This is even more dramatic if you color it by district or county. Who voted for Gore this last election? A couple big cities, and that's it. A majority of the US, from Florida to Alaska and points in between, wanted Bush. Bos-Wash, Chicago, and San-Angeles voted for Gore.

    As much as I think e-voting would be quicker and smoother (in theory), the fact is that it's much harder to keep a record. It's easier to tamper with electronic records than physical ones.

    What we really need is Condorcet voting. The plurality vote system we currently have is broken and stupid. The problem with elections right now is not campaign financing (I'm speaking to you, Sen. McCain) but the voting method we use. We all should be able to put our voice (money) behind any candidate we wish...it's free speech. The problem is that the current system keeps the two major parties firmly entrenched. If voting changed so that minor parties had a fair chance, campaigning would have to change. And if there were more than two parties to support, campaign financing would change.

    The founders knew the dangers of a single party holding a majority of the power. It's much safer to see coalitions of small parties being forced to work together on various issues. That way they have to appeal to a broader constituency.


    I have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.

  • WHAT!!!

    Are you totally nuts? Just open the door and beg to be screened by your DNA. Are you in love with an actuary or something?

    Do you really think that someone over the age of 60 is too much of a risk to employ? My god they might become worth too much to the company and then DIE. Give me a break.

    Listen if you manage to make it to 60 (or 72) with your attitude then you will really want to be able to find work.

    /Duncan

    Duncan Watson
  • He's completely on topic. He's a karma burning troll! :)

    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • I agree with most of your post, but...

    "A couple big cities, and that's it. A majority of the US, from Florida to Alaska and points in between, wanted Bush. Bos-Wash, Chicago, and San-Angeles voted for Gore."

    Huh? What do you mean, a majority of the US, based on land area?

    If you want to make an argument against letting the popular vote decide using your argument above, you should explain why people who live in cities count less than people who live in rural areas.

    BTW, Gore won several New England states which don't have any big cities.
  • > The United States is a union of states, and it's these states that choose the president, not the people.

    Would you then take the position that the current "weighting" of states based on their population is also broken? Should alaska have as big a say as california?
  • Thank you for your post, citizen! (Every reply counts towards my Troll Merit Badge.)

    --

  • Thanks for posting; I give your flame a rating of "4". (All flames are rated on a scale of 1 to 10.) You seem to have the necessary faux-anger, but your lack of originality keeps you from "standing out in the crowd". Perhaps you should reevalutate your strategy and try again.

    Once again, thanks... remember: each reply gives me points towards my Troll Merit Badge! (And the Scoutmaster will never fuck me if I don't get the badge. Timothy got the badge by posting his inane Slashcrap, and the Scoutmaster immediately cored his asshole like a rotten apple. All of the We-blows were jealous.) At any rate, the crapflooders are already making good use of my link, so I'm sure to get the badge... your flames are just bonus points.

    --

  • The upshot is still that there are no easy answers to ensuring that elections are accurate and fair.
    Is that implying that we can have one or the other, but not both?
  • My array indicies start at 0 so 63 should be the age of retirement.
  • We restrict minors because they're not (by whatever definition) "grown up". Obviously, picking the arbitrary age of 18 does not accurately measure the maturity of every single person, but it's close enough by U.S. society's standards. OTOH, there's no age that is even that accurate at telling when someone has "grown down" enough to start restricting them again.
  • And Bush won a whole bunch more states than Gore.

    Our current system helps the smaller states, it gives them more voice.

    It's a compromise.
  • The article didn't say. I guess he's 64. He must have lots of stock and stuff. So Intel doesn't need you when you're 64, but it probably still feeds you. ...OK, geek and Beatles references in the same post. I'll stop now.

  • Thanks. I think maybe the trend towards tall ads to the side of articles caused me to tune it out the first time.

  • What kind of computer company makes you retire at age 65? What a silly number. They should make it 64 instead.

  • Well, after the age of 60, your risk of stroke, and heart attack greatly increases... I can see the rational behind this.. I'd rather not be in a commercial airline and suddenly the pilot has a stroke, dies and falls face first onto the flight stick, putting the plane into a downward spiral.. (meanwhile the copilot is in the john) Sure there are probably a lot of healthy 60 year olds with no prior medical conditions, but I've met 60 year olds that are in perfect health and then suddenly one day they have a stroke or a severe heart attack .. Its probably in the best interest to have a mandate like that.
  • I'm Canadian and we always get a kick out of laughing at you silly people south of us.

    We don't mind. 99 percent of you live within about 1 mile of the border, so we know you really like us ;)

  • Due to conservation of intelligence, every 18 months, people will lose an amount equal to doubling the clock speed of the CPUs.

    Hmmm, surprised that was not part of the original law as it seems to be a truism.

    DanH
    Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
  • I did quite a bit of analysis on her Ph.D. thesis several years ago. A lot of the things she did in it were pretty cool. Unfortunately, some of it was totally bogus. None the less, she often has very interesting things to say. A gratuitous link. [wustl.edu]
  • Furthermore, this meands that if you are younger than 40 and are told you are not hired because you are too young, tough noogies.
  • If it is illegal I don't imagine that it's too huge a deal for him anyways... it was his rule to begin with.

    Moore himself helped craft the retirement edict that is nudging him off the board. ``It must have been 20 years ago,'' he said. ``I could have set up a founder's exception.'' But, the innovator wistfully added, ``it seemed so far away then.''

  • by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Thursday April 12, 2001 @07:12PM (#294821) Homepage Journal
    Note that Moore has a cubicle (Quicktime VR here [mercurycenter.com]), not an office. Like all Intelians. I suppose Moore's accomplishments as an industrialist, scientist, and engineer outweigh his role in pushing the "Privacy is Unproductive" doctrine -- but just barely.

    __

  • this link to the StlToday.com web site giving a brief summary of a pending lawsuit against Linuxgruven.com, Inc. A bit of rumor says the owners cannot be found and perhaps fled. While I'd rather not report rumor, I would like to make sure the people Linuxgruven.com, Inc. has burned hear about them going down in flames and let them know also of the pending lawsuits.

    Wow, for someone who desn't want to spread rumors, you sure must want to start them. No where in that article does is it written that anyone has filed suit against linuxgruven.com. The article only says that the Missouri Attny General's office is investigating "complaints"

  • From the voting articles: The startling result is, with the exception of optical, older technologies were significantly more accurate than newer technologies.

    Not every problem is best solved with a new technology solution. New technology creates the potential for new and unforeseen problems. Sometimes it's better to stick with something that is known to work especially when fundamental rights are involved.

  • It's not illegal.

    There is no federal civil rights statute that makes age discrimination illegal, and age is not a protected class entitled to the additional safeguard of the "strict scrutiny" test for the constitutionality of government actions.

    If this were a government action (and Intel employment policies should not be construed as a government action) then the constitutional test that would apply is the "rational basis" test, in which the state action is legal if it is rationally related to a legitmate government purpose.

  • The article didn't say.

    Sure it did, in the sidebar: "Jan. 3, 1929: Born in San Francisco."

  • I've been meaning to start using IPSEC for my internal network as yet another layer of security: the routers would reject (and log) all non-IPSEC traffic, and make use of IPSEC's authentication to make certain that only properly-identified machines can talk to anybody else.

    Before even considering adding any kind of internal wireless access point, I would make certain to implement IPSEC. At that point, somebody hijacking or eavsdropping on the wireless network wouldn't be able to understand anything (regardless of the wireless protocol) and wouldn't be able to talk to anybody (again, regardless of the wireless protocol). I suppose an attacker might be able to set up multiple wireless devices that talk to each other...but that doesn't give her much.

    Considering all the historical security trouble with sealed boxes, I'm surprised that more people haven't taken this route from the beginning.

    b&

  • ...'cause I think it wouldn've rocked to be buying my computer chips from Fairchild Semiconductor in Portland, ME. Yeah, that's right - he's not only responsible for Moore's law, but also for IP agreements :O

    I can't be karma whoring - I've already hit 50!
  • by autocracy ( 192714 ) <slashdot2007@sto ... .com minus berry> on Thursday April 12, 2001 @04:14PM (#294828) Homepage
    Voting, Suing, Retiring - yeah, that sounds like a good life plan to me!

    I can't be karma whoring - I've already hit 50!
  • Should unicorns be allowed to vote?
  • "The upshot is still that there are no easy answers to ensuring that elections are accurate and fair."

    Not true. The answer is simply to provide an audit trail.

    In its simplest form, this is to use paper ballots.

    In a concession to providing a quick vote count, it is to use voting devices that register a vote electronically and print two "receipts". One is retained under the control of the supervisor of elections and provides verification, if necessary, for a hand recount. The other is taken from the voting precinct by the individual voter. The receipts are identified only by serial number.

  • by robbway ( 200983 ) on Thursday April 12, 2001 @04:58PM (#294831) Journal
    As one of the final acts of this sessions state Senate, Maryland signed into law that there be uniform voting procedures throughout the state. This is partially because of the Florida fiasco that Florida didn't get to solve, but also because some districts ran out of ballots. Had Maryland been the swing state, it would have been just as ugly. Being a Marylander, I was glad to hear about voting issues one more time.

    ----------------------
  • The next technology step towards improving voting does not have to be databases or internet voting. In fact it will never be internet voting because (even though I cant see this happening) they don't know someone is holding a gun to your head to vote Bush. Even more possible is a sign or two or a commercial on TV for president because that too is illegal. Databases, while a better idea, are too hard to get the US convinced to go along with it since they are all paranoid about hacking. Which is slightly true since some guy can go "update voting set canidate='Gore';". The easiest, best, quickest way to get technology in the door is to have like a touch screen computer that you just touch the person you want to vote for. When you're done it doesn't send it to a database or anything. Instead, it just punches out your card for you. Hell, give the option of deciding whether they want to do it on the computer or not, since after all, there would be no way to tell the difference between the two except one is nice and clean and done right. While the other may have to worry about chads or something. Which would also give a more legit reason to just toss them out.
  • What do you mean "smack of". It is rather blatant age discrimination. One more reason not to go to work for Intel. That and cubicles and maybe other things.

    Age discrimination is evidence that there is no shortage of technical workers.

    Illegal? IANAL.

  • In general though, should companies be allowed to tell their employees that their service is no longer appreciated for the sole fact that their age has progressed to a certain number?
    Allowed to? Yes, they should be allowed to. You shouldn't outlaw every dumb thing someone might want to do. But why would they want to?

    This and any other example of age discrimination should be recorded in a file and brought up any time someone says there is a shortage of technical workers.

    Also, this sort of thing should be brought up anytime someone says we need to increase the number of students enrolled in engineering or science. It would be dumb to start a career in a field where you could get kicked out just for reaching a particular age.

  • I think you're just being paranoid,
    but I have to say that I'm very much enjoying
    those JPEG's you have in your "Stuff" folder.

    We have lots of stuff >>> The Linux Pimp [thelinuxpimp.com]

  • I misread StlToday as ShiToday? Hmm. It seems that domain is available too...

    Lot's o' Linux shiToday >>> The Linux Pimp [thelinuxpimp.com]

  • by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Thursday April 12, 2001 @04:02PM (#294854) Journal
    But doesn't a "mandatory retirement age" smack of ageism and be wholly illegal?

    Dancin Santa
  • Someone holding a gun to your head as you vote is unlikely in the USA -- no one man can stop such incidents from being investigated, so anyone using such tactics would soon be impeached or indicted. In some other countries, it happens every election -- the Army's out there guarding the polls, and somehow the candidate endorsed by the Army always wins... And the Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy used intimidation by street thugs as a campaign tactic -- but I think it was of candidates and newspaper editors, not of individual voters. I hope Americans wouldn't stand for that either.

    But there is a considerable history in this country of vote-buying. In the 19th century, it was quite common in the big cities for campaign workers to hand out ballots already filled in, along with a beer -- and a promise of cash after you went and turned in that form. Or maybe your boss would hand you a ballot already filled in... So reforms required that ballots come only from the supposedly neutral pollworkers, and be filled out at the polls, in secret. You could pay someone to vote for you, but you could not tell whether or not he had -- and you might get most of the people taking your money and voting against you because you were a worse crook than them...

    So internet voting and absentee ballots both leave the door open for vote-buying, or for your boss to tell you how to vote if you want to keep your job. They also make the "vote early and often" type of fraud safer than if the crooks have to stand in line at each polling place. The difference is that absentee ballots are hard to get (except in Oregon). You've got to prove you really exist, that you have a reason you can't come to the polls, and in many states go through a bunch of mickey-mouse. People who can handle that are not going to be easy to buy or intimidate. But internet voting is (supposed to be) easy.
  • Moore used to be Chairman.

    Then he gave that job to Andy Grove.

    Intel's board is a lump of play-doh, being added to as stuff gets stuck in it.

    And how hard is the job of a director, anyway. You only have to show up once a year, if that. The rest you can get your lackeys to do.

    The point here isn't Moore's workload. It's his desire to add heft to a page of the Intel policy manual, one that Moore himself might have written, or certainly renewed, back when he was CEO.

    Three-ring binders rule the lives of corporate droids. Never forget that.

    --Blair
  • And according to the federal age-discrimination law someone else posted, the forced-retirement exemption only applies to upper-level executives who have golden parachutes.

    Rank-and-file engineers, or that old codger in the machine shop who knows more about aluminum than you know about your mom, are safe from the "policy".

    --Blair
  • by silent_poop ( 320948 ) on Thursday April 12, 2001 @04:06PM (#294859)
    Is that like Milton from Office Space? Will Gordon be forever damned to wander the basement of Intel pondering the location of his stapler?

    --

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