Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:If you hear competitiveness, reach for your gun (Score 1) 542

There are one million factors to consider when setting up a business. Somehow I don't think "What if it hurts when we leave the country?" is all that high up on the list.

If they want to leave, make it hurt badly(if not something that outright kills the company). Then make the company an example of how things can go wrong in a robbery

And then no company will want to set up shop in your country again.

Government

Survey Says To UK — Repeal Laws of Thermodynamics 208

mostxlnt writes "As we noted, the new Tory UK government has launched a website asking its subjects which laws they'd most like repealed. There are proposals up for repeal of the Laws of Thermodynamics: Second, Third, and all (discussion thread on this one closed by a moderator). One comment on the Third [now apparently deleted] elucidated: 'Without the Third Law of Thermodynamics, it would be possible to build machines that would last forever and provide an endless source of cheap energy. thus solving both potential crises in energy supply as well as solving the greenhouse gas problem in one step... simples... eh?'"
Math

Ranking Soccer Players By Following the Bouncing Ball 142

sciencehabit excerpts from an interesting report on statistics for soccer, in the stats-obsessed world of sports: "Only a handful of soccer ranking systems exist, most of which rely on limited information: the number of goals scored in a match, the number of goals assisted, and some indices of a match's difficulty and importance. ... So researchers turned to an unlikely source: social networks. Applying the kinds of mathematical techniques used to map Facebook friends and other networks, the team created software that can trace the ball's flow from player to player. As the program follows the ball, it assigns points for precise passing and for passes that ultimately lead to a shot at the goal. Whether the shot succeeds doesn't matter. Only the ball's flow toward the goal and each player's role in getting it there factors into the program's point system, which then calculates a skill index for each team and player."
GUI

Flash Builder 4 — Defective By Design? 66

ApolloX writes "Adobe has released its new version of the Flex Builder, now renamed Flash Builder 4. This version is radically different from previous versions of Flex, introducing the new Spark architecture and theme support. While I am pleased Adobe has finally added support for Eclipse 3.5, I am disappointed with some of the new architecture changes that make doing simple things, such as skinning a button, now quite cumbersome."

Comment Slashvertising bullshit. (Score 2, Insightful) 111

Sure, they probably sold a few Kindles this Christmas. But my guess is they compare annual low with annual high here. Who the fuck buys paper books on Christmas day?!
- You're guaranteed a long wait for the item to arrive in the post due to holidays.
- You're busy with whatever family-holiday thing you do.
- It's a bit late buying that book as a gift.
- If it's for yourself, you probably bought it already.. when you bought Christmas gifts two week ago.
- You've already got lots of new stuff.

Comment Re:Wrong solution (Score 1) 143

Rubber hosing is a potential issue, but there are 2 factors that limit the risk:
1) The written receit only needs to be kept until your entry is confirmed in the public records.
2) You are free to hand your receit over to anyone you trust and they could verify the public record for you. This could be individuals or an organisation.

If you put your receit in a box together with 1000 others immediately after you have voted you reduce the risk of having your vote exposed. You do have to trust the people/organisation looking after that box that they will fulfill your obligation to check the public records, though. But you're free to choose whom to give that receit to yourself.

Comment Re:Wrong solution (Score 1) 143

How would it be easier to demand someone to reveal his vote number than demand him to reveal his vote?

The mapping from you to your vote number has to be yours and yours only. If that is not ensured, I agree that this system is broken. I don't see, however, any reason why that mapping would or should be revealed.
(See also reply to Mr. Freeman.)

Comment Re:Wrong solution (Score 1) 143

A receit from the voting machine would take care of that. You get a receit back from the machine stating your voter number and your vote. It does introduce the problem that you have to carry a piece of paper revelaing your vote for a while, but you only need to keep the receit until you have verified that the same voternumber+vote combo is registered in the official records. Alternatively you could hand your receit over to someone you trust. If $yourfavouritetrustworhyorg is present at the voting station, you could hand it over to them immediately and let them monitor the official records.

Comment Wrong solution (Score 1) 143

Rather than focusing on the machine itself it is much more important to make sure that the results are verifiable. Here's my take:
1) Give the voter a randomly chosen voter number.
2) Reveal the vote for each voter number in some puclic channel. (Yes I mean print each and every one's vote in the newspaper)
3) Extend voter's obligations to include reading the newspaper the next day.
4) Have volunteers count the number of people entering each voting station.

If everyone is happy with his own entry in the newspaper and the volunteers are happy with the number of entries, then the election went well.

Comment securing the wrong channel (Score 1) 121

All this focus on securing an inherently insecure channel..I suggest we instead make sure that if the votes are not OK then it will be discovered after the election? I mean, if anonymity weren't an issue it would be as easy as having a list at the library after the election with names of people in one column and whatever they voted for in another. If everyone is happy with their own entry and the list doesn't have bogus entries, the election went well. Since anonymity is an issue, let the voters draw their receit number from a hat and use that number in the library list instead.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Money is the root of all money." -- the moving finger

Working...