Paper ballots are pretty damn open-source.
Just because a voting machine is supposedly running open-source software doesn't preclude tampering - hardware or software.
I can remember one wise lecturer in my computer science course gave a challenge to come up with a system to solve a customer's problem. Being CS students we designed everything requiring the use of a computer. At the end he asked us if we had considered whether a non-computer based system would have actually have done a better job. While in the particular case the answer was no, it did show us that sometimes we use technology for technology's sake and not to solve the problem in the best possible way. Voting machines should be approached in the same way and the opti-scan mention by another poster certainly seems to strike the right balance between solving the problem and not throwing the wrong technology into the mix.
But the only way for Linux to get out of its rut (and yes, unless you think it should stay as a 1% niche to only be accessibly by geeks and techheads it really is still stuck in a rut) it needs at least SOME standardization in important areas like a broken init system.
systemd will not magically make major vendors pre-install Linux on inexpensive PCs and laptops. Until that happens, we're stuck at 1%.
Is it time to have a Cameron meme with 1984 on it?
Like others I found the headline confusing. I read it as "Researchers are predicting the use of Wikipedia as a vector for the spread of disease". This may mean that:
Would changing Tor to use exclusively IPv6 help at any level? Does IPv6 provide any benefits here, other than being 128-bit addresses?
This seems like it is much more for embedded style applications. In this regards, it does just fine.
If you really want a powerful Raspberry Pi, then the Banana Pi or Beagle Bone Black are some alternatives to look at.
One of the definitions I found was:
One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle.
I am sure that fits. While SpaceShip II is mainly intended for a non-exploration purpose, the program has resulted in some significant advances in rocketry and White Knight II has significant non-tourism use. These pilots have been involved in other space efforts, I remember the one who was injured from the Rotary Rocket test flights. There are lots of safer ways for these folks to make as much money as a test pilot is paid. They do what they do to advance our progress in aeronautics and space.
There are many paths to the future and not taking isn't really one of them.
While Virgin Galactic may be about rich space tourists, these people should be seen as early adopters, helping bring down the price for the rest of us. The research and development here also provides a different technology approach than the bigger space companies, which are still focusing on traditional launch vehicles.
The challenge in the space industry is getting new investments from beyond the government and communication satellite operators. Space tourism provides an alternative private form of funding, helping develop new technogies and techniques. These billionaires probably have no way of spending all their money and this provides a nice way of providing funding for space and a way for them to do something they might enjoy with their money.
As for the test pilots, well I would prefer to see an automated flight as the first test flight, followed by a manned mission, but it may be too hard to provide a good system to deal with the unknowns. Test pilots fly with a passion and accept that never returning is part of the risk. It doesn't mean they should be treated as expendible, since we are talking about lives and highly skilled people, but we should accept that there is a risk which we must accept.
For the engineers and business owners knowing that a life is at stake should be incentive to double checking everything, even the assumption that it couldn't possibly fail. Everything fails, so it is more about asking in what conditions could it fail.
If the following blog post is worth anything, then maybe the USA will still go with eLoran as a backup:
http://www.panbo.com/archives/...
The next question is how cheap is the most affordable eLoran receiver, and where can one be bought?
I have seen some attempts to r creating HyperCard, but nothing really seems to have come of them. If there are any successful or fully functioning open source equivalents I would be interested in knowing about them.
I used HyperCard a bit and in certain ways the closest equivalent is something like PowerPoint or Keynote, though even with them there I a huge gap with HyperCard did. I wonder whether Apple could recreate a 21st century HyperCard, but using Keynote as a basis?
Martyrs? Who killed them for their beliefs?
Go away, troll. They certainly died while pursuing something intensely important that they were willing to risk their lives for. The fact that you weren't around to pull the trigger makes them no less martyrs.
Well, given that Apple doesn't charge for OS upgrades anymore, it can be argued that the cost of the OS is $0, when bundled with a Mac. You can get your refund, but I am not sure that $0 is worth the effort.
The real cost is having to buy a new Mac every few years because the latest upgrade was an upgrade too far. Well, at least it easier to roll back, compared to an iPhone.
Reading the article now (shame on me for not doing so), I suspect there is malice or 'good intentions' resulted in failed risk analysis and fallout prediction.
Two wrongs don't make a right, was hopefully something that your parents taught you when you where quite small.
The issue is that the FTDI driver is deliberately reprogramming a chip that is not theirs and for which they have no authorisation to do so. This is an unauthorised modification and illegal.
You cannot stick something in a license agreement that allows you to break the law, because the courts will hold that part of the license agreement null and void.
As many many people have said the right and legal thing was to simply stop working and post a message to the user that the chip is a counterfeit/clone.
Why put this down to malice and not down to a programming/QA issue?
If I am developing something, then my general approach is to test it against know factors and some edge cases I can think about. Counterfeit stuff screws with the whole programming and QA cycle, since they say they are the same as something I developed, act as something I developed, but fail in subtle ways I wouldn't have considered or tested for.
Maybe FTDI did do something intentionally, but I suspect it was an oversight, especially considering they pulled the update once reports were coming in.
FTDI will probably have to do three things:
- Test for the known limitations of counterfeit hardware (they can't test for the unknowns).
- Update the EULA to be clear of risk/
- Update the installer to warn against cloned chips and impact it may have.
Kleeneness is next to Godelness.
