I just realized that I haven't been sending notifications of my new blog entries, even though people have been signing up for them. Oops. What do people usually do these days? Send a notification with every entry, or just once in a while? Or never? And in MoveableType, how can someone remove themselves if they no longer want to get notifications?
UPDATE: I'm taking the e-mail notifications box off the page, and won't use this feature.
Pierre, I entered your name into my contacts list at LinkedIn, and it turns out you're already a member! Imagine that! Since I went to the trouble to type your name into Outlook a long time ago, let's connect so you can help me with referrals! You don't know me, but I know you (or at least your e-mail address)! If we connect, it'll be like we've always known each other! --Ralph
I've been getting too many of these e-mails. Since I haven't used this new 'feature' of LinkedIn, I don't know if these messages are automated or manually triggered. They all have the same text, so they seem automatic. I've decided I'm going to decline or ignore these unless I get a personal note. Roughly 1 out of 3 comes from someone whose name I recognize. But people I know well don't send me these -- they send me direct invitations.
Their system doesn't automatically scan your imported contacts and send these invitations out, does it? That would be dreadfully annoying.
Sorry, I'm feeling grumpy.
Well, either my timing was pretty good, or someone was reading my blog pretty closely and cared about what I had to say. (Ok, it's the former.) Nevada announced a few days ago that they would require that a paper receipt be printed for each vote, and that the receipt could be verified by the voter before the vote was cast.
Nevada has used electronic voting machines made by Sequoia for years in some counties, and they will attach a printer to their units before the 2004 election. This is two years earlier than mandated by the Help Americans Vote Act of 2002, and makes Nevada the first state to require paper receives that voters can directly verify.
The most unusual part of this decision is how the Nevada Gaming Control Board was asked to evaluate the security of Diebold and Sequoia machines. The announcement quotes from the full report by the Electronic Services Division of the Gaming Control Board:
I believe the Diebold electronic voting machine, operating on the software analyzed in a John Hopkins report and the SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) Risk Assessment Report, represents a legitimate threat to the integrity of the election process.
I'm pretty sure the Gaming Control Board has a unique perspective and competency to assure the integrity of electronic systems. Among other things, these are the people who make sure casinos aren't cheating gamblers who use slot machines -- and that cheaters can't take advantage of the machines, either. Maybe Nevada should extend the GCB's jurisdiction to the assurance of electronic voting machines. Kind of an out-of-the-box idea, I'd say. Elections are kind of a crap-shoot, after all.
Nevertheless, as a resident of Nevada, I'm happy to see our state administration doing the right thing, and setting the example for the rest of the country.
Read on for a brief description of how the receipt printer works...
Continue reading "Nevada First State to Require Voter Receipts in 2004" »
I just endorsed the resolution on electronic voting at verifiedvoting.org. I also looked at my home state of Nevada's statements on electronic voting machines. They don't make it clear that the voter should have a chance to manually verify a permanent, auditable record of their vote.
I've sent an e-mail to the State Elections Division to ask them to clarify this matter. Since the e-mail address was on the state's web site, I'm not hopeful of getting a timely answer. We'll see.
(As a side note on my endorsement -- I endorsed the statement as an individual, not as a representative of eBay or the Omidyar Foundation. I made that clear in the comments field, and used a personal e-mail address. Should directors and officers of public companies be allowed to make public statements on issues of public policy without implicating their organizations?)
Given that I haven't posted anything to my blog in several months, maybe I should be happy that at least spammers are posting something every now and then. Or at least that they are reminding me that my blog still exists, rather pathetically, slowly accumulating comment spam like cobwebs in an abandoned house.
But no, I've been removing them as quickly as I see them being added. I feel slightly bad, because it is conceivable that Human Growth Hormone might have something to do with some of the things I've posted about. Or not.
But spam is uninvited and not useful to anyone reading or commenting most any blog. It should be eradicated, and here's what Six Apart has to say about it.
This is neat, though the full name is a bit of a mouthful, and the site is broken right now because of too much traffic. But it looks like there's a thorough framework in place and it seems well executed. What a great idea.
I've been too busy playing with some new toys to post recently, so I thought I'd fess up and admit what I've been playing with. (Ok, I've had some real work to do, too. But who wants to talk about work?)
The Segway
Ok, this thing is too cool. I was actually quite dubious at first, before trying one. When they became available on Amazon.com, I thought, "Gee, another gadget that every high-tech geek is going to buy. I'm not getting one." Well, I finally succumed to temptation and bought one about a month ago.
You've probably heard it all before. This thing is cool. I'm not going to repeat all the neat technology and mechanical engineering that went into it. But the surprising thing is that it is incredibly fun. You learn in about 60 seconds, and it's remarkably easy to control.
The unexpected thing is how fun it is, especially when going uphill. Whenever I glide uphill on a sidewalk, I can't help but think about how I would have struggled on a bike, or how long it would have taken to walk. And, it's fun to stroll along at walking pace alongside pedestrians, in complete control. It's nice having a couple extra inches in height, too.
Update: I had my first fall off the machine today, and skinned my elbow. I was doing something incredibly stupid, trying to climb a hill of loose gravel. Sheesh. Pretty stupid, thank you.
The Sidekick (Danger hiptop from T-Mobile)
This thing is so neat that I've forgotten how neat it is. The color display is really great, much better than I've seen on any other handheld. It's always connected to the network, so AOL instant messages come and go without having to tell the thing to connect. It syncs instantly to a web interface -- too bad it can't sync with my Mac via iSync. Not to mention not syncing with corporate e-mail/organizers.
The Macintosh
Yes, I switched back to a Mac, and I love it. I'm using the 15 inch PowerBook G4, and it is sweet. In fact, it seems everything Apple is doing these days is sweet. Plus, I get to run Unix tools/apps.
The iPod
A gift for my birthday, it is too much fun. I got the 30 gig version -- more storage than any of my computers had before I bought the PowerBook a month ago. Now I've got all my CDs on it, a nice tape deck adapter for the car, and I'm all set. Plus, with the Apple Music Store, I've bought more music in the last 10 days than I bought in the last 6 months.
It turns out that Mars and Earth will be closer than they have been in 60,000 years, on August 27, 2003. As a result, three missions will leave Earth in the next five weeks heading to Mars.
Seeing as how this is the first time humans are launching multiple probes at this planet, I hope that if there happens to be any sentient life already on Mars, they don't get the wrong idea.
The obligatory emergence-related mention in this round-up is from this New York Times article. Talking about the Beagle II, the project's lead scientist said:
"We didn't have any money, so we had to think harder," said Dr. Colin T. Pillinger, the project's lead scientist at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England.
Having fewer resources usually means you are forced to innovate. It also means you can avoid the trap of top-down design, which usually only works if you're solving a well-known problem. Since as far as I know, we haven't been to Mars that often, going to Mars does not qualify as a "well-known problem." That's why I'm most optimistic about these sorts of scrappy, bottom-up approaches (relatively speaking, anyway) than I am about top-down, big-budget bureaucratic approaches.
Saw this link on Ross Mayfield's blog: Weblogs and knowledge management.
Seems to me that highly collaborative environments could be enhanced by using web logs as a preferred means of sharing information, rather than mass e-mails.
Here's a quote of an excerpt on that page:
Blogs encourage cross-functional disruptive thinking.
I read a great quote that, like a magnet of meanings, pulled together layers of my thinking into a surprising pattern of possibility. Here it is: "Here is the paradox: You need a great team of people with diverse skills to perform a symphony well, but no team has ever written a great symphony! ... While cross-functional teams are key players in defining and implementing incremental innovation projects, cross-functional disruptive individuals tend to be key players in defining radical innovation projects."
Just as I was getting over the embarassment (and mild annoyance) of having to defend myself for not having posted an entry for a couple of weeks, I saw Ross Mayfield wonder aloud what had happened to me.
It was purely coincidental that my last post tried to explore the difference between institutional and personal speech. But Ross does highlight some of the issues I've found nagging at me over the last few weeks.
Now that I know more people are watching what I post, I'm more hesitant to post informally. I want to, but it seems risky at a personal level. This is interesting to me, because I don't find it risky at an institutional level -- meaning, I find I'm not that worried about the issue I raised in my last post. I'm more worried that I'll post something here that isn't terribly interesting or significant.
Therefore, I want to spend more time thinking about what I post. We're all busy, and it turns out that I haven't had a great deal of time in the last few weeks. Hence, no post.
Ross does identify something of particular and different value in blogging: the exact informal, un-edited, and maybe not terribly-well thought out aspect of what gets posted. It actually reminds me of that peculiar fascination I have with watching live TV news during a developing situation. You sometimes pick up early reports of things that you never hear about later. It could be that those early reports were not based in fact -- or it could be that the evidence was ephemeral and was swept away before it could be more widely verified. It seems a shame that those early reports are effectively lost.
So blogs don't have to be perfect, or even try to be. There is value in their imperfectness. Maybe it's all about wabi-sabi.
I agree that it would be a shame if I were held to be somehow institutionally responsible for statements I make here. A standard disclaimer, in a very easy to understand form like the Creative Commons licenses, would be great.
In the meantime, in case anybody is confused, the statements I make here are my own opinion, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization I'm involved with. And the title of this post is one of my earliest memories of a not-so-convincing disclaimer.
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