RedCard - Slashdot User

Comment Re:done with hitchhiker (Score 1) 410

by RedCard on Saturday August 22, 2009 @01:18PM (#29156275) Attached to: New Hitchhiker's Guide Book "Not Very Funny"

Finally - other people have disagreed with me, but I see the Arthur/Fenchurch bit as the high point of the series. Here's Arthur, beaten up for years in the other books, finally find a soulmate and happiness. Marvin finally feels good about something.

As far as I'm concerned, THE END.

Comment This is how it always goes down (Score 5, Insightful) 119

by RedCard on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @10:54AM (#28957661) Attached to: <em>Wipeout HD</em> Loading Ads Scrapped After Uproar

The first time a company attempts shenanigans like this, there's an uproar. Then they wait a while, for some of the people to get used to the idea, or apathetic, or both, and then attempt it again.

Too much hue and cry the second time results in a third repetition, with a slightly longer cycle. Process repeats until implementation.

Submission + - Elections Canada Push for Laws for Online Voting (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by so.dan on Saturday June 27, 2009 @12:57PM

so.dan writes: The CBC is reporting that Elections Canada will push for legislation to allow online voting and voter registration to increase the percentage of Canadians who vote. Is there any way to make such a system secure, both from "hackers" and from corruption in government? Is it possible to make it transparently secure, at least to those with some basic knowledge of electronic security?

The CBC notes one argument in favor of such a change to the electoral process in a recent report by Elections Canada: "only 58.8 per cent of registered voters actually cast ballots during last October's federal election — the worst-ever voter turnout in Canadian history". Aside from the fact many I knew didn't vote for the (irrational) reason that they felt they had "just voted" for the previous federal government (which was prematurely "dissolved" by our Governor General), this argument seems flawed for another reason: High voter turnout in a country is a substantial piece of evidence that the population feels their vote will make a difference, and thus is a testament to the extent to which the country is democratic. So long as everyone who wants to vote has the means to do so (note that in Canada employers are required by law to give employees time off to vote), high voter turnout is not, however, (much of) a cause of democracy. Accordingly, increasing voter turnout in a manner other than through real increased enfranchisement of a population, when the method of increase involves (what I fear is) a substantial threat to democracy, seems wrong-headed in the extreme.

Even if the elections process can be made transparently secure, there is also the frightening prospect that some time after electronic voting has become accepted in the general population as normal and nothing to worry about, some change could be made to the system which (unintentionally or not) undermines its security or transparency.

Submission + - Smartphones Get Killer App (bnet.com)

Submitted by

Michael_Curator

on Friday June 26, 2009 @04:06PM

Michael_Curator writes: "A killer application has finally emerged that should allow smartphones to overtake conventional PCs and laptops as the computing device of choice: it's called augmented reality, and as absurd as that sounds, that's exactly what it is. Mobile device consultant Tomi Ahonen wrote on his mobile developer forum that, "this is one of those game-changer types of innovations." Using location based services on smartphones that include a camera, GPS and a compass, the technology allows customers to augment their surroundings with metadata layered over what their smartphones capture through their viewfinders."

Comment Re:On what authority? (Score 1) 162

by RedCard on Saturday June 20, 2009 @04:14PM (#28403993) Attached to: Doctorow Says Google & Amazon Stifle Progress

I've got agree with malevolentjelly on this. If you're going to take on the mantle of speaking from authority, you should have some authority to speak from. In addition, the parent poster states that

"When Doctorow makes sweeping statements, it's best to back away and think through them"

and you write

"Measure an idea on its merits"

How does encouraging readers to step back and examine NOT cause them to measure ideas on merit? Did you even read what you replied to?

Submission + - Chernobyl Mushrooms Feeding on Radiation

Submitted by cowtamer on Thursday August 02, 2007 @07:52PM

cowtamer writes: According to a National Geographic Article certain fungi can use ionizing radiation to perform "radiosynthesis" using the pigment melanin (the same one in our skin that protects us from UV radiation). It is speculated that this might be useful on long space voyages where energy from the Sun is not readily available.

Slashdot Top Deals