I've done my civic duty. Has Diebold done its?
The electronic voting machine was clunky but mostly straightforward. I had a bit of trouble with the touch screen when checking through the summary of my votes: it didn't want to scroll. I eventually figured out you had to press long enough for it to register, unlike my laptop's touchpad which it looking for a sharp tap to signal a click. The local machines also use a printed copy of the vote to allow for verification.
Hmm. Interesting thought: California has enough items on the ballot, and few enough voters in a precinct, that you might be able to uniquely associate a vote printout with a particular voter's combination of votes.
In any case, I'm curious to know if other people have lost confidence in the Diebold machines, or if I'm in a small minority here.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
the search for the ultimate keyboard
One occupational hazard I've had to deal with is being on the edge of carpal tunnel. My typing technique is pretty good, so I've been able to avoid it so far, but the laptop keyboard I've been using is doing me no favors. So I've started looking for a good external keyboard.
Trouble is, (a) I'm picky about keyboards, and (b) this machine requires a USB keyboard. I learned to type on manual typewriters, so I really like a keyboard with fairly long travel and a solid feel. My absolute favorite keyboard is an old IBM Model M (mine was made by Lexmark for IBM) that uses buckling spring technology. A co-worker described the feel as "crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside." It weighs a good 5 pounds, is designed to last a lifetime, and sounds like a machine-gun when I'm typing full blast, noisy enough to annoy those around me. It's also a PS/2 interface, so it would need an adapter. My second favorite is an old Gateway model Coppertop bought for me that was made by Maxi-Switch. It feels similar to the Model M but uses a different technology that's quieter. It's also PS/2.
What I really want is a full-sized keyboard that's quieter than the Model M, has a similar key feel, and has a USB interface so I don't have to go through large numbers of adapters and such. I haven't found it yet. PCKeyboard.com comes close, but they don't seem to combine their "enhanced quiet touch" stuff with a USB keyboard for United States use. (They also have one with a built-in mouse/track-point, but it's also buckling-spring only, or quiet touch but PS/2 only, with no indication they've quieted the buckling spring technology down any.) Cherry has a possible contender, but I'd definitely want to try it before buying it. Das Keyboard has an interesting "quiet" mechanical key switch technology, but not printing the letters on the key caps is, well, a little extreme for my tastes.
OK, I know it's weird to spend this much effort on a keyboard, but I expect to keep the thing for at least the next 20 years and use it for a lot of keypresses. It will probably go into the office with me as well (or I'll buy a second one). Anyway, the search continues.
Update: I got e-mail from the Das Keyboard folks saying they plan to sell a version with key labels. Also, Cherry indicated the Das Keyboard is a customized version of Cherry's G80-3000LQCUS-2, though I'm not sure how customized.
Update #2: see this follow-up post: the clickly keyboard rides again!
Trouble is, (a) I'm picky about keyboards, and (b) this machine requires a USB keyboard. I learned to type on manual typewriters, so I really like a keyboard with fairly long travel and a solid feel. My absolute favorite keyboard is an old IBM Model M (mine was made by Lexmark for IBM) that uses buckling spring technology. A co-worker described the feel as "crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside." It weighs a good 5 pounds, is designed to last a lifetime, and sounds like a machine-gun when I'm typing full blast, noisy enough to annoy those around me. It's also a PS/2 interface, so it would need an adapter. My second favorite is an old Gateway model Coppertop bought for me that was made by Maxi-Switch. It feels similar to the Model M but uses a different technology that's quieter. It's also PS/2.
What I really want is a full-sized keyboard that's quieter than the Model M, has a similar key feel, and has a USB interface so I don't have to go through large numbers of adapters and such. I haven't found it yet. PCKeyboard.com comes close, but they don't seem to combine their "enhanced quiet touch" stuff with a USB keyboard for United States use. (They also have one with a built-in mouse/track-point, but it's also buckling-spring only, or quiet touch but PS/2 only, with no indication they've quieted the buckling spring technology down any.) Cherry has a possible contender, but I'd definitely want to try it before buying it. Das Keyboard has an interesting "quiet" mechanical key switch technology, but not printing the letters on the key caps is, well, a little extreme for my tastes.
OK, I know it's weird to spend this much effort on a keyboard, but I expect to keep the thing for at least the next 20 years and use it for a lot of keypresses. It will probably go into the office with me as well (or I'll buy a second one). Anyway, the search continues.
Update: I got e-mail from the Das Keyboard folks saying they plan to sell a version with key labels. Also, Cherry indicated the Das Keyboard is a customized version of Cherry's G80-3000LQCUS-2, though I'm not sure how customized.
Update #2: see this follow-up post: the clickly keyboard rides again!
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Friday, November 03, 2006
my favorite apocolypses
There's nothing like the combination of global warming news, the general drumbeat of world events, and a semester starting to wrap up to put me in an apocolyptic mood. It's time for some perspective, so I've decided to document a few favorite apocolypse dates, many drawn from Alma Geddon's absolutely amazing collection.
2012. I've had a soft spot for 2012, when the Mayan calender cycles, for a few years now. There's something nice and round about it. "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold'" as Yeats wrote. 2012 ties in nicely with his idea of gyres, cycles in the world.
2038. As a computer geek, 2038-01-19 03:14:07 GMT has a special place in my heart. You see, Unix systems traditionally express time as the number of seconds since midnight, January 1, 1970, and they typicaly express it as a 32 bit value. On January 19, 2038, that 32 bit value gets so large that it wraps around from being a positive number to a negative one. Which means Unix computers may get confused. (What am I saying. Anyone who's looked at the source code of most Unix apps will tell you of course they're going to get confused.) Even worse, lots of Internet protocols express time the same way Unix computers do, so the Internet might get confused, too. Sort of like Y2K but without the millenial hysteria.
Either 24.92 billion years or 100,000 years, depending on the prediction: At this point, the accumulated weight of the National Geographic magazines people insist on saving will depress the east and west coasts of the North American continent, raising the middle two hundred meters into the air, causing nasty climate problems and turning the Rockies into an island chain.
5 billion years, give or take. In five billion years or so, the sun goes nova. As the inimitable Sam Hughes, who's studied such things and should know, so eloquently pointed out, "The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron". As apocolypes go, melting every piece of ice on the planet and turning the Rockies into an island chain is peanuts to a stellar nova.
I encourage you to check out Alma Geddon's list and a useful meta-list here. If I've left out an apocolypse date that's near and dear to your heart, feel free to comment about it.
2012. I've had a soft spot for 2012, when the Mayan calender cycles, for a few years now. There's something nice and round about it. "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold'" as Yeats wrote. 2012 ties in nicely with his idea of gyres, cycles in the world.
2038. As a computer geek, 2038-01-19 03:14:07 GMT has a special place in my heart. You see, Unix systems traditionally express time as the number of seconds since midnight, January 1, 1970, and they typicaly express it as a 32 bit value. On January 19, 2038, that 32 bit value gets so large that it wraps around from being a positive number to a negative one. Which means Unix computers may get confused. (What am I saying. Anyone who's looked at the source code of most Unix apps will tell you of course they're going to get confused.) Even worse, lots of Internet protocols express time the same way Unix computers do, so the Internet might get confused, too. Sort of like Y2K but without the millenial hysteria.
Either 24.92 billion years or 100,000 years, depending on the prediction: At this point, the accumulated weight of the National Geographic magazines people insist on saving will depress the east and west coasts of the North American continent, raising the middle two hundred meters into the air, causing nasty climate problems and turning the Rockies into an island chain.
5 billion years, give or take. In five billion years or so, the sun goes nova. As the inimitable Sam Hughes, who's studied such things and should know, so eloquently pointed out, "The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron". As apocolypes go, melting every piece of ice on the planet and turning the Rockies into an island chain is peanuts to a stellar nova.
I encourage you to check out Alma Geddon's list and a useful meta-list here. If I've left out an apocolypse date that's near and dear to your heart, feel free to comment about it.
article on why linux is having trouble with the desktop
ZDNet's carrying an article, "The world just isn’t ready for Linux," which raises some good points about why Linux is having trouble in the desktop world. Slashdot picked it up here. I particularly agree with a couple points. First, Ubuntu is a promising step in the right direction. And second, hardware support on Linux can be a real pain, at least for new hardware:
Part of the reason is resources. Device drivers, the part of the operating system that talks to the hardware, are specific to the operating system. That means a company is less likely to throw developers at writing device drivers for operating systems with smaller market share, like Linux or OS X. Also, you can't use a device driver written for Windows on a Linux machine, or vice versa. Why not? Partly technical, but mostly because of ideology. Many of the people who program for Linux feel strongly that the source code for software should be available to the public, but many hardware makers want to keep the source code secret for business and intellectual property reasons. As a result, you don't see attempts at writing, say, adaptor software that would let one operating system use device drivers meant for the other.
If you read the article, skim through the comments at the bottom. They support the author's point nicely.
The one area of Linux ownership and use where it becomes apparent that there's an assumption that everyone who uses Linux is an expert is hardware support. Your average user doesn't have the time, the energy or the inclination to deal with uncertainty. Also, they usually only have the one PC to play with. Hardware just has to work. There's a very good reason why Microsoft spends a lot of time on hardware compatibility - it's what people want.To clarify a bit, Linux does quite well for older hardware, but new hardware often requires new device drivers, and finding them can be a royal pain. Things like web cams are often not plug-and-play, for instance.
Part of the reason is resources. Device drivers, the part of the operating system that talks to the hardware, are specific to the operating system. That means a company is less likely to throw developers at writing device drivers for operating systems with smaller market share, like Linux or OS X. Also, you can't use a device driver written for Windows on a Linux machine, or vice versa. Why not? Partly technical, but mostly because of ideology. Many of the people who program for Linux feel strongly that the source code for software should be available to the public, but many hardware makers want to keep the source code secret for business and intellectual property reasons. As a result, you don't see attempts at writing, say, adaptor software that would let one operating system use device drivers meant for the other.
If you read the article, skim through the comments at the bottom. They support the author's point nicely.
sleepless night
I'd love to be able to blame it on the neighbors' loud-voices-and-music-till-2-a.m. Thursday night party, but truth be told the real culprit was my own stupidity. I've been sick, which means I was dragging as it is, and needed to be alert for a three hour class that starts at 6 p.m. So I had a rather large cup of coffee. Which turned out to be potent stuff, potent enough to keep me up till 4. Needless to say, I'm extra dragging today. Lesson learned, I guess.
Still have no idea what the neighbors were thinking cranking the stereo at 2 a.m. on a weeknight, though.
Still have no idea what the neighbors were thinking cranking the stereo at 2 a.m. on a weeknight, though.
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Wednesday, November 01, 2006
lost in translation
From a box of Japanese green tea:
"The aroma from the foot of Mt. Fuji"
Somehow, the beauty of the image seems to have gotten lost in translation. Oh well, at least it wasn't the aroma of Mt. Fuji's old gym socks.
(It's actually pretty good genmaicha--tea with brown rice--though every time I drink it the aroma of the brown rice reminds me of puffed rice breakfast cereal.)
"The aroma from the foot of Mt. Fuji"
Somehow, the beauty of the image seems to have gotten lost in translation. Oh well, at least it wasn't the aroma of Mt. Fuji's old gym socks.
(It's actually pretty good genmaicha--tea with brown rice--though every time I drink it the aroma of the brown rice reminds me of puffed rice breakfast cereal.)
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the recent rise in spam
I thought I'd noticed a recent increase in the amount of stock spam I was getting, stuff that punches right through the spam filters. It turns out, others have noticed it, too. From the article:
Estimates of the magnitude of the increase in junk email vary, but experts agree that an uncommon surge in spam is occurring. On the low side, Symantec, the owner of SecurityFocus, has found that average spam volume has increased almost 30 percent for its 35,000 clients in the last two months. Others have seen much more significant jumps: Spam black list maintainer Total Quality Management Cubed has seen a 450 percent increase in spam in two months, and the amount of spam filtered out every week by security software maker Sunbelt Software has more than tripled compared to six months ago.The article goes on to say the spam's been coming from botnets, groups of compromised computers, which matches what I've seen in my own much less scientific sampling. It sure would be nice if we had secure operating systems, wouldn't it?
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