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Comment Re:Online voting cannot be secured (Score 1) 405

I think you are overstating the problem - in fact, I would say that it is easier to secure online voting than it is to secure online banking - because you can retain the status of "secret ballot" while publishing more information than would be acceptable in a banking system. It's simple: the government issues each voter a random id. For the voting process, (id+vote+salt) are hashed, the user gets their hash - and then at the end everyone's hash and the cleartext voting choice are publicised. Mr. malware can still change your vote and display in your client that you've voted for "your choice" but the publicly available hash-vote pair will show the truth and you can then report your vote was tampered with. Although I suppose that would open the window to post-election vote switching...

Comment Re:One tiny flaw (Score 1) 360

The article does seem to imply that the organisms are given the (pre-programmed) ability to be altruistic rather than evolving it themselves (they just decide how likely they are to be altruistic) - but what this study allows is observation of the sorts of conditions where altruism is valuable, and why.
Math

Submission + - Do large jackpots make lottery tickets rational? (circlemud.org)

An anonymous reader writes: Last week's Mega Millions multi-state lottery jackpot reached $380 million, and $1 tickets had a 1 in 175.7 million chance of winning. Was it economically rational to buy tickets? The answer was surprising. Either way, over 200 million tickets were purchased!

Submission + - Starting an Aspergers child with game dev?

An anonymous reader writes: I have a 13 year old with PDD-NOS, simlar to Aspergers, that is facinated by gaming and has expressed an interest in learning. Unlike many Aspergers kids, without some early and easy success, he will get frustrated and give up. If he can get a couple of quick wins, he will dive in to something tenaciously. Due to this, I'm thinking of getting him started with a game engine to help him build some quick, simple games and suck him in. I'm looking to spark his imagination and help him understand he can turn the worlds he creates on paper into worlds he can interact with and share with the his friends (most of which are online).

Given this, what game engine would you recommend? Am I just setting him up to build bad habits? Should I skip the engine and just start him off with VB or similar? What did you do to get your spectrum kid started?
AMD

Submission + - AMD CEO Dirk Meyer resigns (goodgearguide.com.au)

angry tapir writes: "Advanced Micro Devices has announced that Dirk Meyer has resigned from the post of CEO, and that the company is beginning to search for a new chief executive. Meyer resigned in a mutual agreement with the board of directors, and the company has appointed Thomas Seifert, the company's chief financial officer, as the interim CEO. Meyer was installed as CEO in 2008 as a replacement to Hector Ruiz, just as the company was making its way out of rough financial times. In October, AMD posted a third-quarter net loss of US$118 million."

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