I don't disagree, but I'm afraid the X Factor generation will demand a more user friendly way of voting, or they won't bother.

That's not strictly true I'm afraid. In the UK the "marked register" (the paper audit of who voted) is marked with the ballot paper number against the voters name. So currently there is an audit trail from the individual to an individual ballot paper, and hence to their vote. It's not available to just anyone, but you can, under certain circumstances, find out how an individual voted, or more importantly how they were recorded as voting in case of fraud. Both individual ballot papers and marked register are retained after the election. I'm talking about something similar for electronic systems is all.

The problem with electronic systems is they are often floated as the sole solution to all electoral fraud (they're not) or as intrinsically weaker than paper based systems (and I'm arguing they are not that either).

Paper votes are subject to impersonation, for example, especially if voter turnout is low. During canvassing for the recent UK General Election for example, I became aware of people who were not voting due to absence (and hadn't secured a postal vote). It would have been simple to use those votes if I was so inclined.

The only solutions are transparent voting systems (if electronic, software and hardware must be publicly documented so that flaws are found and fixed - yes, I user Firefox!), plus independent audit trails (say, issue each voter with a receipt that can be checked against the voting record, if they agree).

The inconvenience of paper voting (many hundreds of people couldn't vote in the UK due to various issues related to this, and unexpected voter turnout) will push us towards electronic, probably internet voting whether we like it or not. The real question is not are these systems acceptably fraud resistant, but how to make them so.

I've decided to look at things, and try to remember them, rather than (as I used to) react to any interesting sight or situation by trying to take a picture. It's been quite a liberating change.

(OK, so I counted the .jpg files by date - 120 in the last year)

One card to rule them all, one card to find them, One card to bring them all and in the darkness bind them (With apologies to you know who)

Unless you are intercepting the entire beam of a directional antenna (only likely if this is an antenna communicating with another mast or base station, rather than the more likely scenario of one designed to talk to handsets) then inverse square is the correct formula, surely.

Every time you do you are holding the antenna of that right next to your head. Yes it's lower power, but there's an inverse square distance law at work to, so the intensity is massively greater than that from the one 20 feet away. So either buy the apartment, or stop using cell phones. They are the only two logical choices.

You do not need to struggle like how you do with Windows

Mod me troll if you please, but you may think of it as struggling, I prefer to think of it as consulting. If it was easy, who'd pay me for it?

Do we need a new version of the Blue Screen of Death for PCs?

Those laws of course will be public.

Not entirely the case in the UK. The proposed law that is going through parliament gives the relevant minister the right to change the scope and penalties in the future without coming back to parliament. So no, we (and more to the point, our representatives, when the vote for it) won't know what the law will be in the future.

"sTealing".

See, *hey've already s*olen my "*" key!

...and Sony are the pirates, "sealing" from people legitimately buy the game second-hand.

I'm not Swedish. Am I immune to this technology?

This happens on my Droid with Verizon as well.

3G coverage seems to fluctuate wildly just sitting at my desk or at home.
I can try to download email and it will timeout, but while surfing the web, different websites will load immediately or sometimes not at all.

When I'm at home at least I can hop on the wifi and things improve somewhat.

I'd really like to have a network quality feedback app for Android like AT&T has for the iPhone. Actually I'd like to have a feedback app for a lot of the things on Android, including the Google Maps driving directions BETA won't be replacing my TomTom anytime soon.

I sign up for BETA programs, I've been a real QA tester, I don't mind using BETA software, but give me the ability to provide feedback right there when I'm using the phone.

yeah, no shit.

seriously, their method is on crack. SMTP supports queue of mail, use the god-damn feature and us a compressed link for the exchange.

put quotes on the uplink as necessary to prevent flooding (size, or number of messages) if it's an issue, but otherwise, where;s the problem to solve? SMTP worked when people used 1200bps modems for internet links.