I've got to admit that Televoting as described in the video doesn't strike me at first glance as a bad idea at all. I'd be interested to hear what holes can be poked in it, but I think using a human election official and engaging in live video interaction between the official and the voter, and allowing the voter to witness (via video) the ballot filled in with their choices going into a ballot box goes a long way towards addressing the complaints I have with other forms of internet voting.

It's beyond just dumb. This is the sort of waste of public money that really should be criminal. At the very least, the CEO and his Chief of Staff should be dismissed. Call it encouragement to resign if that's the way it's done these days, but if someone getting paid $200K plus thought this was worth it, that person is not worth it.

$17,500 to polish your CEO's reputation? The CEO and the Chief of Staff should both be fired. Or, in keeping with the CEO's resume, encouraged to "resign." And suing to recover the money is likely to cost the public more than just giving up on the wasted funds. Just cut your losses, Seattle.

Every glass of water anyone drinks contains at least one molecule once pee'd out by Attila the Hun.

It's a scientific fact,unless it's not. But it sure helps to think this is true if you're drinking treated waste.

All advertising supported news runs the risk of turning into "content;" that is, of existing primarily as a circus attraction to get an audience into the advertisers' tent.

In the distant past, professional integrity enabled journalists to get actual news into newspapers. Perhaps that was because the people who chose to devote their lives to journalism, even the editors and publishers, were interested in contributing to society by acting as its eyes, its ears and, on occasion, its conscience. That's always been in conflict with people who view their work as a way to raise money for themselves, and don't give it any thought beyond that. Of course, few people exist at either extreme; most of us are somewhere along the spectrum.

There's a Darwinian process taking place in journalism as elsewhere. What survives will be what attracts people -- that is going to be something that brings in enough money without rendering itself so distasteful that people with disposable income universally reject it. The fitness landscape is being altered as we speak by the increasing income inequality of our society. Magazines selling Rolexes will do well, as will newspapers that cater to the lowest common denominator that can still buy anything.

If I were you, I would not be searching for truth in ad-supported media; what you get is either "content" or propaganda the owners liked investing in. Google just sounds a bit more clever and experimental in its thinking than the rest.

If you can't stand these priorities, please consider signing this: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/help-arriving-children

Please let me explain what I am thinking in distributing this petition. I believe that Americans, like people everywhere, truly want to help others. But somehow, through a combination of fear and the greed of a few people, we no longer show this value in our government's budget. Instead, we spend more than $600 billion a year to fund the world's biggest military and the companies that build weapons, while sometimes thinking we cannot afford simple humanitarian programs.

If Americans understood what we could buy for ourselves and our neighbors with just one percent of the military budget, I truly believe we'd shift our funding. One percent of our military budget could fund sixty $100,000,000 projects at home or around the world. And, with Central American kids risking their lives to travel to our borders, the need is evident.

Some of us sometimes worry that welfare programs go to "undeserving" people. This is a time when, regardless of our beliefs about whether welfare works, we can easily see that people deserve our help and support -- these are kids fleeing poverty and danger.

Groups like The Moral Majority have poisoned the word "moral" for many people I know. But true morality has nothing to do with conservative religious groups. True morality is using our wealth to help our neighbors in distress, not to further build an already oversized military. True morality is not turning our backs.

And I further feel we find our own safety in true morality. A nation that is extending its arms to help others is less likely to be attacked than a nation that demonstrates concern only that the wealthiest 0.01% of the world not pay their fair share of the bills.

Thanks for spreading the word!

If you know your legitimate vote was thrown away, you should be raising hell in more significant places than here. I'd start with the FBI and some journalism group like Pro Publica. It would be perfectly possible for a group with limited resources to get a substantial number of voters to check on whether their ballots were counted or tossed out, and they could show them to journalist witnesses before submitting them, to demonstrate that they were properly filled out.

The truth is, I don't believe you.

Here are some questions for Professor Gilbert, regarding internet voting:

1. How will non-mathematicians know with certainty that votes have been properly received and counted?

2. If the security depends upon encryption, how will we know that encryption has not been broken by a secret agency with vast computing power? Further, how will we know that those involved in developing the encryption have not secretly offered back doors to such agencies, as has happened in the past?

3. What will a voter do if they experience an election-day denial of service attack?

4. How can we know that a vote has not been coerced if the voter votes from home (bullying spouse, etc...)?

5. What are the insurmountable difficulties with a paper-based election process that make internet voting desirable despite risks? Why is the United States no longer capable of counting cast ballots in public? It is clearly not the vast number of voters, since this is a distributed problem with a vast number of potential counters. What has become so broken among our pseudo-elites that this KISS approach is now considered so inappropriate?

Yes, but per your very own article the only reason IIIc isn't used is because taxiing blind is impossible. There is only one situation that a plane would land IIIc without a windshield and that's if its cameras failed. If all of its cameras failed then it's an emergency landing situation anyway and they could clear a runway and tow the aircraft into the terminal like they often do with an emergency landing due to mechanical failure.

In every other situation you would have at least visual and probably FLIR video.

Only because of taxiing. You would only perform an ILS IIIc (blind) landing if all of your cameras somehow simultaneously failed.

It's worse than that. The problem with these kids is that they are just smart enough to do something but too stupid to realize that their idea doesn't work. They either grow up to be fly by night scammy venture capitalists or else that pot head kid in highschool "Dude, I just came up with this great idea, why don't we just power cars with rare earth magnets! They would go forever without gasoline!"

Generally these kids come up with bad ideas that even a smart 16 year old could see the flaws in. The truly brilliant kids looked at the problem looked at possible drawbacks or obstacles and concluded "Hmm, no nevermind, that wouldn't work." meanwhile the somewhat smart but ultimately too dumb to see the ultimate failure of their idea power through on the local news before they finish the R&D.

Yeah, if you try to explain to the average person how close we are to mass unemployment with just one breakthrough in AI they generally shrug or say "yeah, but a computer can't do my job."

If our economy doesn't want to change, then I'm just going to be sure to make it "onto the ark". The global economy is not going to correct itself IMO. It would require such a large commitment to fundamental change from everybody that I expect the current trend to continue. If people don't want the system that oppresses them to change--I don't see a reason to be on the side of the oppressed.

Perhaps I missed something, but the linked article (and also the Fotokite product/site) has absolutely nothing to do with safety. It talks about privacy/transparency.

A tether to a person on the ground only makes the devices even more unsafe, as they now get tangled with each other and other environmental hazards. Perhaps it would limit its range (which is not mentioned in the article), but a heavy device falling is a heavy device falling.

One thing that would increase drone safety would be an automatic parachute so when they do collide or lose power or go ape crazy, it can more softly return to earth.

This is a reply not just to you, but to several similar posts at once:

1) I don't have trouble maintaining employees, and it is precisely because I am careful to hire someone that won't quickly leave.

2) We don't have the best pay nor all that much room for positional growth, but it is a great environment and very stable. I am careful to disclose as much as possible about the goods and bads of the position so there are no unreasonable expectations.

3) I don't count contract work as job hopping. It is not the same thing, and it is usually apparent based on the resume.

4) The type of positions I am hiring for are not project oriented as many posts have assumed. It is departmental management, training, systems administration, and support.

5) I agree that people should be moving on if they are stagnating, but I can't have that be every 1 to 2 years, we simply don't have the resources to deal with that type of turnover in a small company.

I can tell you now than when I am hiring and looking at resumes and see 1 year, 2 years, 1.5 years, 9 months, I label it is a "job hopper" and throw it in the "least likely to consider" pile. And a CRAPLOAD of the resumes are that way, regardless of the position. Many things come to mind when I see that "hopping"- maybe they are just using each job as a stepping stone to get more money or experience, maybe there is something wrong with them and they can't keep a job, or perhaps they are too easily bored.

As an employer, hiring a new employee is a HUGE amount of time and financial drain on my department. Regardless of what somebody does know or thinks they know, I rarely get full productivity from someone until perhaps a year (sometimes less, sometimes more). If they are looking for such temporary employment, I need them to just look elsewhere.... I need some reasonable return on my investment.

I don't expect people to stay at a job for decades anymore (although there is nothing wrong with that... I have 25 years now with the same company) and I know sometimes a job is just not a good fit. But turnover in a small department can be devastating. If I were to see the same resume with 5 years, 3 years, 6 years, that looks FAR more attractive.