Touchscreen interface problems

/ Media Technology

There’s been a lot of talk about how touchscreen voting is a better interface than paper ballots, but that we should not (and should not have to) sacrifice the security, understandability and reliability of having a paper audit trail as well. Now it seems we’re seeing interface problems with touchscreen voting.

I expect the voting officials are right that this is a case of “user error” — that’s what we call it in our industry when the interface designer didn’t do enough of a good job and now wants to blame someone else. Having watched technologically-minded researchers get confused when they accidentally trigger our giant presentation touchscreen at work, it doesn’t surprise me much either. Unfortunately, with all the cases of actual voter-registration fraud, invalid and highly-suspicious selctive purging of voters from the rolls, back doors secretly coded into official vote-counting software, and laughable “security” protocols in voting machines these voters (Democrat and Republican) are right to be skeptical. We need to do better.

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Price of gas

/ Uncategorized

Regular Gas: $2.65 99/100Picture taken last night at the gas station near my work in Menlo Park. That’s a little high for the area, by the way — gasbuddy.com (great site!) shows as low as $2.36 if you’re willing to drive a bit.

I remember watching news reports back in 1979, late in Carter’s term, when the big story was how gas prices were so high that stations had to upgrade their pumps and signs to include a dollars column. For months you could see makeshift cardboard past-overs adding the $1 to the listed price.

Adjusted for inflation, that $1 price comes out to around $2.47 in today’s dollars.

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Votergasm

/ Politics

Take the Votergasm Pledge:

  • Citizen level: I pledge to withhold sex from non-voters for the week following the election.
  • Patriot level: I pledge to have sex with a voter on election night and withhold sex from non-voters for the week following the election.
  • American Hero level: I pledge to have sex with a voter on election night and withhold sex from non-voters for the next four years.

And would you believe, I heard about it on BBC radio?

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Marketplace’s Ballot Buck$

/ Politics

One of the best news features I’ve heard for cutting through all the political rhetoric and BS is Marketplace‘s five-minute Ballot Buck$ segments. Each one talks about where Bush & Kerry stand on a particular issue, but rather than leave it as a he-says, she-says thing they then actually talk to economists and other experts to evaluate each proposal, explain what neither side is mentioning and really but through the fog, all in a non-partisan way.

Take a look especially at the last few entries on healthcare, the deficit, and social security.

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SBGI takes a beating

/ Media

Yow. Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s stock just tumbled by 7.81% today over concerns about lost advertising revenue due to the Stolen Honor flap. To put it into perspective, SPGI’s stock price is now the lowest it’s been in a decade except for a couple weeks in April of 2001. As Lessig points out, that’s a good $60 million they’ve lost in market cap over this.

UPDATE 10-21-04: Sinclair has now backed off from their original plans (along with the plea of No really! We never said pickles!) and the market has responded with an 11% bump.

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