From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V5 #286 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Tuesday, November 28 2000 Volume 05 : Number 286 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: re: alloy-digest V5 #285 ["Julie Sweeney" ] Alloy: May the Force be With You - Allways. ["Tim Hudson" ] Re: Alloy: Election mayhem (OT) ["DENISE D LUCKEY" ] Re: Alloy: Election mayhem (OT) [Beth Meyer ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 08:14:54 -0600 From: "Julie Sweeney" Subject: Alloy: re: alloy-digest V5 #285 > The first thing that struck me was that arguably the most technologically > advanced country in the world could not manufacture machines that can > successfully punch a hole in a card. So now a lot of (probably very highly > paid) people are sitting around in groups, examing these cards, one at a time, > to see if they can agree where the machines tried to punch a hole. And it > appears that the design of some of the voting machines was such that people > intending to vote for one candidate may have ended up voting for the opposition. > And we're all learning new terms for the different types of indent made by those > machines, although I think I've managed to forget them already. Weren't > 'dimple' and 'pregnant' in there somewhere? Then there is the situation where > thousands of votes will simply not be counted. The result's been delayed for > days (or is it weeks now?) and some votes will still not be counted!!!! I > really can't understand that. What's the point in voting if your vote will not > be counted? Well, Slarv, most of us here in the U.S. are amazed as well that we are using such antiquated election equipment. But please be clear--the machines don't punch a card, the voter does, with a little stylus. The cards are then READ by a machine. It seems to me to be a fairly simple operation, with one voter responsible for only his or her ballot, making sure the holes are cleanly punched and able to be read by the machine. Apparently there are instructions to this effect on the ballot, in the booth, and given by the poll workers, and yet, here we are. As for confusing design of "voting machines" I guess you're referring to the infamous butterfly ballot, which you may or may not have noticed has more or less been dropped as an issue. Again, there's ample time in the voting booth to make sure one understands the ballot, and help available you don't. If a voter can't manage to turn in a cleanly and accurately marked ballot, then he would appear to have disenfranchised himself. So if there are "thousands of votes not being counted" maybe that's why. Truthfully I have no idea what you're on about there. > And now I hear that when the result is announced, the loser will appeal against > it, so there may be further delays. Both candidates want the counting to > continue until they're declared the winner. If they're going to do that, why > didn't they just have a 100m sprint to decide who would be the new president. A further clarification.... only one candidate wants to keep counting until he's declared the winner. The other candidate has been in the lead since election night, through all the twists and turns, judicial rulings, deadline extensions, etc. > Actually, just about every American on the list would likely > disagree with me on just about any point. First, I am one of those > evil people who is of a conservative bent Chalk me up as another... as if you couldn't tell. Sorry, guys, I tried hard to keep my mouth shut, but inaccuracies cannot remain unchallenged. I will go back in lurk mode now and mind my own beeswax. Julie ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 10:30:27 -0500 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Re: Alloy: Calendar project Thanks for your responses! Craig, October is yours :) And Chuck, I'll add your birthday to the calendar (does this mean you want artwork to be featured in July too, or just the birthday?) Where artwork is concerned, I've been thinking that the calendar should be an ongoing thing... not just for 2001. It'll be kind of convenient to have a continually updated Alloy calendar online, featuring members' birthdays, anniversaries etc so I'll be taking artwork from everyone who has any to feature, from this point forward! For the 2001 calendar we'd set a theme of doing "visualizations" of Thomas' work. I'd had an idea of having it be a sort of costume ball with people dressed as characters from his songs or videos, but any sort of visual adaptation of the music is perfectly applicable to the project (and leaves room for lots of creativity! :) For future calendars, anything from Alloy members can be featured I think, whether it's your own personal artwork or something relating to Thomas' work. Thanks to all who've contributed so far & I look forward to seeing more members' imagery as the project goes along. Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 16:01:24 +0000 From: "Tim Hudson" Subject: Alloy: May the Force be With You - Allways. Joe Jackson Big World Album: Yes excellent an oldie but goodie. Europe: "Were a continent a continent oh ....!!!!" or ..."just look at my country now"......Q.E.D. "Oh you speak French". Not that I pretend the master has spoken these words.....I prefer the scene in Monty Pythons Life of Brian where the bloke drops the Gourd and everyone believes it to be a sign "Follow the Gourd" - "No !! Follow the shoe" etc.....If youve seen the film - you'll understand. USA Elections: If Shakespeare had written a play about this ......and dont laugh because lots of smart unhealthy looking folk in big woolley [not bruce woolley] jumpers claim Shakespeare had a profound understanding of all human failings [love, death, hate, jealousy, tragedy, envy, and farce to name some]...... then someone in the cast would sooner or later produce the sword for one or the other candidates to fall on.......... Right now I'm in the audience wondering whos got the sword? ["Follow the Sword" = "no Follow the shoe"....."no follow the Gourd" "Hey Bud - - just leave Ralph Nader out of this".......] In the UK each Christmas we have the Pantomime season. This is where special plays are performed for children to attend. Audiance participation is essential. All the children shout out at the actors " HES BEHIND YOU !!!" and the actors pretend they don't know when the Wolf creeps between the curtains with the Axe drenched in blood... To change subject completely Nintendo are releasing a new games console next year called "the Cube" or something like that - I know its based on the word Cube.....no doubt they'll need some advertising Funk... Oh ......I see You're ahead of me already. Anyway ......May the Force be with You wherever you are reading this and whatever your politics race and religion. Tim from Luxembourg. - -- Tim Hudson tim_hudson@zdnetonebox.com - email ___________________________________________________________________ To get your own FREE ZDNet Onebox - FREE voicemail, email, and fax, all in one place - sign up today at http://www.zdnetonebox.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 22:24:50 +0000 From: Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: re: alloy-digest V5 #285 Julie Sweeney wrote: > > > Well, Slarv, most of us here in the U.S. are amazed as well that we are > using such > antiquated election equipment. But please be clear--the machines don't punch > a card, > the voter does, with a little stylus. The cards are then READ by a machine. > It seems > to me to be a fairly simple operation, with one voter responsible for only > his or her ballot, > making sure the holes are cleanly punched and able to be read by the > machine. Apparently > there are instructions to this effect on the ballot, in the booth, and given > by the poll workers, > and yet, here we are. As for confusing design of "voting machines" I guess > you're referring to > the infamous butterfly ballot, which you may or may not have noticed has > more or less been > dropped as an issue. Again, there's ample time in the voting booth to make > sure one understands > the ballot, and help available you don't. If a voter can't manage to turn in > a cleanly and accurately > marked ballot, then he would appear to have disenfranchised himself. So if > there are "thousands > of votes not being counted" maybe that's why. Truthfully I have no idea what > you're on about there. > I stand corrected. I DID say I hadn't been paying too much attention and I am really only feeding back what's been reported in the media, and we all know how misleading THAT can be. > A further clarification.... only one candidate wants to keep counting until > he's declared the winner. The other candidate has been in the lead since > election night, through all the twists and turns, judicial rulings, deadline > extensions, etc. > That DEFINITELY wasn't was reported here yesterday. Either way, it does seem extraordinary that it's taking so long to come up with an indisputable result. > > > Actually, just about every American on the list would likely > > disagree with me on just about any point. First, I am one of those > > evil people who is of a conservative bent > > Chalk me up as another... as if you couldn't tell. Sorry, guys, I tried hard > to keep my mouth shut, but inaccuracies cannot remain unchallenged. I will > go back in lurk mode now and mind my own beeswax. > > Julie This next bit is included under the heading of 'getting your retaliation in first;' a soccer term coined by someoneother a while ago and I'm afraid a lot of it rings true. Apologies if you've already seen it. You know, I have a feeling that both the following and the one I sent earlier were written by the same author (it wasn't me, in case you were wondering) I'd like to think the score is 1-1 and I'd be happy to leave it at that. Slarv > From the United States > > To the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, > > We welcome your concern about our electoral process. It must be exciting for you to see a real Republic in action, even if from a distance. As always we're amused by your quaint belief that you're actually a world power. The sun never sets on the British Empire! Right-o chum! However, we regretfully have to decline your offer for intervention. On the other hand, it would be amusing to see you try to enforce your new policy (for the 96.3% of you that seem to have forgotten that you have little to no real power). After much deliberation, we have decided to continue our tradition as the longest running democratic republic. It seems that switching to a monarchy is in fact considered a "backwards step" by the majority of the world. To help you rise from your current anachronistic status, we have compiled a series of helpful suggestions that we hope you adopt: > > 1. Realize that language is an organic structure, and that you aren't always correct in your pronunciation or spelling. Let's use your "aluminium" example. Sir Humphrey Davy (an Englishman) invented the name "aluminum" (note spelling) for the metal. However, in common usage the name evolved into "aluminium" to match the naming convention of other elements. In 1925 the United States decided to switch back to the original spelling and pronunciation of the word, at which point we dominated the aluminum industry. We'd also like to point out that the process of actually producing aluminum was developed by an American and a Frenchman (not an Englishman). However, we'd like to thank you for the Oxford English Dictionary. It's an interesting collection, considering that over 10,000 of the words in the original edition were submitted by a crazy American civil-war veteran called Dr. William Charles Minor. > > 2. Learn to distinguish the American and Canadian accents, and then we'll talk about the English and Australian accent issue. > > 3. Review your basic arithmetic. (Hint 100 - 98.85 = 1.15 and 100 - 97.85 = 2.15) > > 4. If you want English actors as good guys, then make your own movies. Don't rely on us for your modern popular culture. We liked "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," "Trainspotting," and "The Full Monty." We've also heard good things about this "Billy Elliot." But one good movie a year doesn't exactly make a cultural powerhouse. However, you're doing pretty well with music, so keep up the good work on that front. > > 5. It's inefficient to have a national anthem that changes its title whenever your monarch dies. Let's not forget that your national anthem has an extremely boring tune. We suggest switching to that Rule Brittania ditty, it's toetapping. Or maybe Elton John could adapt "Candle In The Wind" again for you guys. > > 6. Improve at your national sport. Football? Soccer? This just in: United States gets fourth place in men's soccer at the 2000 Summer Olympics. United Kingdom? Not even close. By the way, impressive showing at Euro 2000. You almost managed to get through the tournament without having your fans start an international incident. > > 7. Learn how to cook. England has some top notch candy. Salt 'n' Vinegar chips are quite yummy. However, there's a reason why the best food in your country is Indian or Chinese. Your contributions to the culinary arts are soggy beans, warm beer, and spotted dick. Perhaps when you finally realize the French aren't the spawn of satan they'll teach you how to cook. > > 8. You're doing a terrible job at understanding cars. The obvious error is that you drive on the wrong side of the road. A second problem is pricing, it's cheaper to buy a car in Belgium and ship it to England than to buy a car > in England. On the other hand, we like Jaguars and Aston Martins. That's why we bought the companies. > > 9. We'll tell you who killed JFK when you apologize for "Teletubbies." > > Thank you for your time. You can now return to watching bad Australian soap operas. > > p.s. - regarding WW2: You're Welcome. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 10:07:40 -0800 From: "Kathleen T. Presser" Subject: Alloy: Re: alloy-digest V5 #284 Just to let everyone know, my birthday is December 18, 1966. Kate;-) PS, Would any Alloyites in Southern California be interested in adopting a female grey kitten?? We would keep her, but we are short of room and already have four full grown cats, plus we live in an apartment. She was rescued last night and has been de-fleaed. Let me know.... Thanks! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 21:59:51 -0500 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Re: Alloy: Election mayhem (OT) Tim Hudson wrote: > Anyway ......May the Force be with You wherever you are reading this > and whatever your politics race and religion. Thanks Tim - we could all use a bit of that Force right now :) The conversation about Indecision Day has been very interesting! I'm glad to hear the opinions of the people I've come to know through this list. I'm fascinated to hear about the politics in Britain & I'd like to know more about what's going on there, and why. I'm going to do some research on my own & learn about this - especially the 'vegetables by the pound' situation (!!!) As Diva points out, Britain's politics truly do seem very much like the politics here. For the record, here is everything I've been given to know about the Florida situation, and why the Democratic Party are contesting the results there. I'll try to keep this brief, and I'm sorry if I'm boring anyone, but it's a timely topic anyway (if not an On-Topic topic) For those who don't want to hear anything at all about politics, I apologise! I watched the results on television as they occured on the night of the election, and they were calling early estimates of winners per state. Things seemed evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans all over the US, as expected. Gore was called as the winner of the Florida vote (estimate) based on a percentage of the vote they'd counted thus far. The report went on to other states, but in a little while the reporters said they'd gotten a call from the Bush camp saying to 'hold off' on calling Florida just yet. In short order the Gore lead was turned around to being a Bush lead, and we all know the rest of the story at least to this point. Of course, the Gore lead *was* only an estimate, and these early state-by-state calls have been known to be turned around through the will of the people who voted. But it did get my attention because in past elections, it almost always works out that whoever wins Florida wins the Presidency, because of Florida's large # of electoral votes. What I think may be casting a light of suspicion on all of this in Florida in particular is that Bush's brother Jeb is the governor of Florida, and it's been reported many times since by insiders that after the 'hold off' request, J. Bush spent the evening vigorously making phone calls to friends in high places around the state. Since that night we've heard Florida citizens in a few counties complain of there having been 'jammed' voting equipment in one county that night which would not allow Gore to be chosen, only the candidates on either side (Republican/Bush or Reform/Buchanan). There were reports of missing ballot boxes which mysteriously turned up hours later, a truck which became 'lost' on the way to deliver ballot boxes to be tallied & was hours late for its delivery, and one driver who said he 'forgot' to deliver a ballot box until the next day! In addition, there are serious human rights violations being investigated regarding the voting process. As reported today by Norman Lockman, a freelance syndicated columnist, there was statewide discrimination against minority voters, the majority of whom were polled as intending to vote Democrat. The allegations include... large numbers of registered Democrat minority voters who had no problems voting in the primary elections were turned away on election day because their names had since vanished from the rolls; black male voters in some counties were checked for felony records before being alowed to vote (white males were not); minority voters in some counties were sent from polling place to polling place & rejected for various reasons at each until they either gave up or ran out of time; minority voters who made mistakes punching their ballots were denied new ones in defiance of state law, which allows up to three attemts. Many of these mistakes - ie, pregnant or dimpled CHADS - can be attributed to there being no bilingual ballots available (which are required by law) for Haitian-American and Latino-American voters. So as it is, and even though it's tiring for everyone, it seems like the Democratic challenge of the Florida results is a valid one. I think both sides were pushing really hard for this election because this is a particularly crucial time. The Republicans currently have the majority in both the House and the Senate, and with a Republican president in place, there would be Republican control of two out of the three branches of government. The last time this happened was the era of McCarthyism - and while I certainly don't mean to indicate this would happen again, this does illustrate why it's frankly dangerous to have the government leaning too far in either direction... much better to have balanced conservative and liberal input for such a large and diverse nation. The next president will also likely appoint two new Supreme Court justices (the Third branch, which right now has only a slight liberal majority - but two justices are considering retirement). The presence of a liberal or conservative majority of Supreme Court judges could sway some significant decisions in the past. For example, Roe v. Wade. As it currently stands, the (liberal) Supreme Court ruling states that no legislation can be passed which denies women the right to an abortion, because it is her right according to their translation of the Constitution. However if a conservative enough Supreme Court were in place, Roe v. Wade could conceivably be repealed and decided that since women weren't even mentioned in the constitution to begin with, they therefore have no such right. This is an extreme example, of course, which I'm only using to illustrate the dramatic changes in basic human rights legislation that could take place under certain conditions. I hope I don't offend anyone in this or anything else. In any case, *whoever* should win the presidency, I hope they will continue to be gracious and respectful toward members of the other party throughout our government and our country, and that the one who doesn't win will be equally gracious. All things considered, I think everyone involved has been very patient about all of this. I just hope every election isn't like this one.. I'm worn out. Peace, everyone. Robin T back to her Dolby thoughts :) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 22:45:03 -0500 From: "DENISE D LUCKEY" Subject: Re: Alloy: Election mayhem (OT) Just a quick comment on Robin's post as I'm captured by the intrigue of this political tug-of-war as well. My understanding was that Florida was projected so quickly on election night for Gore due to the exit polls which had him running enough ahead to win the consensus of the state. Yet when the returns actually started coming in Bush was emerging ahead which began to foreshadow the problems of the polling differences in the state. Evidently many people thought they were voting for Gore hence the exit poll results when actually they were voting for someone else or not being counted at all. As one analyst put it the polling machines are not perfect-if you put a dollar bill in a Coke machine and it spits it out does that mean the bill is bad and you throw it away? It seems the only fair way to solve the dispute is to count the whole state manually and let the results be final. Unfortunately the parties have too many obstacles between them and can't seem to find a common ground for any agreements. Where's Maggie Thatcher and Ronnie Reagan when you need them? M. Luckey ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 21:36:08 -0500 From: Beth Meyer Subject: Re: Alloy: Election mayhem (OT) > Hi, folks; I just had to weigh in, with the perspective of someone who has had to eat, sleep and breathe statistics as part of my graduate training...(hopefully shedding more light than heat on the topic). Currently, as elections are conducted in most of the United States, the sources of random and not-so-random noise in the count are legion. And not only those that have been featured in discussions on the news. Certainly, in a populous state, thousands of votes can be missed entirely by the counting machines because a little bit of the punched-out bit stuck onto the back of the ballot. (And no -- no instructions that I've ever been given in my voting career have ever told me to scour the back of my ballot to be sure that the little remnant was completely and totally detached, and most people would find such instructions a silly waste of time. They punched, they felt the paper tear, they see a hole -- most everyone will assume that's enough to ensure that their vote will be counted. But it ain't necessarily so.) Also, in every election there are "irregularities", whether it be poorly designed ballots, badly trained volunteer poll workers who rush people through the process and don't give people a chance to make corrections, etc. In most precincts, you don't have to produce any identification whatsoever to vote, you just tell them your name and sign a form. So you could easily assume someone else's identity if you were pretty sure they weren't voting themselves. Also, in most precincts, there is no system in place to prevent someone from sending in an absentee ballot ahead of time, and then voting AGAIN on election day. The imprecision generated by such things in a relatively large state is easily in the tens of thousands. Of course, normally the people voting in a statewide or national election have a clear preference that overwhelms the random error that is currently part of the process. But in this case, statistically speaking, the outcome in Florida has consistently been a tie. At no time has the margin of "victory" officially accorded to Bush been anywhere close to the sheer amount of random noise. Manual recounts will reduce some noise -- specifically, that introduced by machines spitting out votes that are obvious to a human eye -- but not all of it by any means. We are basically in a situation where our process and technology do not fully support our legal requirements. Legally, all you are supposed to need to win an election in which X people voted are X/2 + 1 votes. But practically speaking, given current processes and technology, we cannot determine those X people's votes to that degree of precision. As I've seen one statistician put it, we are trying to use a ruler to determine which of two bacteria is longer. My own inclination is to hope for as much reduction in the noise as is legally appropriate and possible before the date on which Florida has to decide their electors (Dec. 12) and then live with the result. But I don't have any infallible solutions for the precision problem. While automated telephone and computer systems have been touted as being superior, they introduce their own usability problems. (Can you imagine sitting at your phone, listening to "For George W. Bush, press 1; for Al Gore, press 2..." followed by about eight third-party candidates -- then the ballot initiatives? Ugh...) I do wish, however, that more people in the positions of designing ballots and machines had a clue about usability testing. We can know that there are some designs that tend to promote human error more than others, and simple testing with real live users trying to actually accomplish the task tells you which ones. The Human Factors ? Ergonomics Society, of which I am a member, should have a field day with this whole thing. Maybe someone will finally listen to us ;-) OK, sorry for the ramble -- back to your regularly scheduled programming... - -Beth bethmeyer@mindspring.com ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V5 #286 ***************************