Just an update on the current Finnish e-voting farce where 232 votes were lost due to `usability' issues with the voting machines, this Finnish EFF (see their statement). This might seem pretty small but this was only a pilot in three small areas and actually accounted for 2% of the electoral register. The problem happened when after a voter had inserted their smart card to verify their identity, selected their candidate by typing his/her number and pressing okay, then a verification screen was shown and some voters did not press the okay on this screen but removed their smart cards which caused the ballots to be lost. The instructions on the machine said that the only way to cancel a vote was by clicking the cancel button and then removing their smart card, this of course didn't help...
Here are a couple of interesting bits and pieces.Cory Doctorow, technologist and author has released a new book called "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future". Its twenty eight (28) essays on a wide spectrum of topics with titles including "The DRM Sausage Factory", "It’s the Information Economy, Stupid", "How Copyright Broke", "In Praise of Fanfic", "The Future of Ignoring Things". These essays range on topics from DRM to mobile phones and touch the singularity, privacy issues, and the semantic web along the way. In his true spirit, he has again release both a print book for sale and a free-to-download CC BY-NC-SA licensed PDF. I'm looking forward to digging down to this gem from one of my favourite authors. The best way to whet the...
See?And they laughed at me for being such a big fan of Stargate! Ha! I bet they're sniggering on the other side of their faces now that scientists have discovered an earth-like planet only 50 million light-years away, orbiting the Sol-like star, Mu Arae.See?Ha!I suspect this discovery is more significant than the scientists realise. I suspect, in fact, that they have discovered the home-world of our esteemed and beloved Prime Citizen, Bertie Ahern.Why do I think this? Well, it seems to be our nearest Earth-like neighbour, it's gravity is such that its inhabitants are likely to be short, thick-boned and squat. Furthermore, to judge by what our Prime Citizen said yesterday, he can't possibly be from this planet, but must come from a parallel reality just slightly skaw-ways of our...