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United States

Discuss the US Presidential Election 1912

Posted by CmdrTaco from the end-of-the-road dept.
We made it. It's election day. Tomorrow we'll know. So for today's election discussion story, I'm throwing it wide open: let's discuss the election itself. Who are your picks and why. And also what about your actual experience voting today? Did Diebold eat your vote or did everything go off without flaw?
Security

Submission + - Atom Smasher - Hacked (smh.com.au)

Submitted by Slurpee
Slurpee writes: Hackers claim they have broken into the computer system of the Large Hadron Collider, the mega-machine designed to expose secrets of the cosmos. The hackers vowed they had no intention of disrupting the experiment at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) on the Swiss-French border, they just wanted to highlight the flaws in the computer system's security. Said the hackers 'We're pulling your pants down because we don't want to see you running around naked looking to hide yourselves when the panic comes'

Feed Engadget: NASA crowns winner in $250k "flying car" contest (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Transportation

Flying cars come pretty high up the average gadget geek's wishlist, so it's pretty encouraging to see NASA funding a $250,000 contest that could eventually produce a pioneering vehicle that can fly and drive. Although none of the winners this time around can actually achieve the two feats, they all have features that tend towards the PAV (or Personal Aircraft Vehicle) area of the General Aviation spectrum. The winner was the Pipistrel Virus, a $70,000 aircraft that can do 50 MPG and take off on short runways, whilst having a top speed of 170 MPH. The industry still seems to have a while to go yet, seeing as NASA awarded a prize to the Cessna 172, which has been flying in one form or another for practically half a century.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Media

Submission + - Dan Rather uncovers flaws in touchscreen voting

Submitted by goombah99
goombah99 writes: Dan Rather Reports has posted a lengthy YouTube teaser of their upcoming touchscreen voting expose (to air tuesday at 8 or 11pm ET) This is sort of a "60-minutes" style investigation of touchscreen voting. It's apparently not a rehash either. Rather turns up some new evidence such as tracking down the dilapidated plant where the ES&S ivotronic touchscreens were assembled. There they were having a 30 to 40% rejection rate on the screen themselves. Apparently the issue here was a rush to market to meet the election schedule. They needed lots of machines, fast. So plant workers say the rejects got shipped too. The "rush to market" aspect demonstrates an often overlooked strength of the use of open source software with commodity hardware and a multiple vendor business model like open voting consortium. This should be much less subject to single source point failures and has a built-in adversarial oversight nature that might lend some quality control. I just hope their conclusion is not "we need perfect machines and perfectly trained operators" and instead is we need a different approach that is transparent, robust and self correcting in the face of errors.
The Courts

Submission + - Supreme Court rules Ebay sale binding. (smh.com.au)

Submitted by Slurpee
Slurpee writes: The NSW Supreme court has ruled that making an offer of sale on Ebay is legally binding. In other words — you can't change your mind. In a case that reached the NSW Supreme Court, Peter Smythe sued Vin Thomas after he changed his mind on the sale of a 1946 World War II Wirraway plane after the eBay auction had ended. "It follows that, in my view, a binding contract was formed between the plaintiff and the defendent and that it should be specifically enforced," Justice Rein said in his decision. The judgment sets a precedent for future cases and means eBay sales could now be legally binding (At least in Australia).
User Journal

Journal Journal: Tucker Max: Case Dismissed (submitted story)

Journal by Slurpee
Last month a story was posted on slashdot describing how a former Miss Vermont manage to get a court to prohibit Tucker Max (the defendant) from "disclosing any stories, facts or information, notwithstanding its truth, about any sexual or intimate act engaged in by Plaintiff". The injuntion was a gross violation of Tucker's freedom of sp

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