Cold Constructs Blog

It’s true: the electoral college is out of date. It was used to counter ignoramuses back in the day when the fastest means of communicating was by horse. Now everyone can put their ass in the know with the internet, TV *cough*, and discussion via phone (airplanes and cars help, too). So now the only way to be ignorant is by choice, since it’s so damn easy to get informed.

That aside, we must acknowledge yet another problem: the voting medium. Paper is too cumbersome and inefficient, yet electronic voting is insecure (by that I mean it can be easily cracked and tampered with - suddenly we’d find the lead singer of Linkin Park getting more votes than Bush and Kerry… combined).

So. We see problems, and I see solutions. Let’s start with the voting system itself.

For single-candidate elections Instant Runoff Voting would do the job perfectly. As for multi-candidate elections, the Single Transferable Vote is all we need. The people’s choice, not the bureaucrats’.

Nov23 UPDATE: Thanks to a friend of mine for pointing out an even better method that can do any number of candidates. Like killing two birds with one stone. It’s called Condorcet (pronounced Condor-say … yes, it’s French). It’s a good solution, but has issues when ambiguity presents itself, as there are a lot of different methods that can be used to solve the problem of ambiguity. Read the link and make up your own mind.

So how will the people vote? Custom-built, offline electronic kiosks would allow everyone to easily and quickly enter their choices. These machines are small and serve this one purpose (what, you don’t think sustaining a democracy is worth the extra cost of custom computers?). They consist of a keyboard, touchscreen monitor, custom printer (as in custom ink or unique printing method), and the computer itself, which is: a tiny mainboard with the simple, graphical, custom Operating System built-in (ie firmware), and the video component will be part of the mainboard (same concept as nVidia’s nForce chipset). These computers will not be networked at all, in any way. This is so that no one from the outside can hack into the system. They’re also small enough to hide anywhere, even built into the booths so that they can’t be physically hacked either. Once the voter finishes, the machine prints out a piece of paper made from a unique material, which is then fed into a different (also NOT networked) computer. This computer will scan the paper, verify the paper (that is, the material and ink), and tally the votes. The papers clearly shows how the person voted, so that he/she can verify that the computer got it right. Once the voting session is over, the machine tallies the votes and prints out a hard-plastic-wrapped piece of paper. This tally is then taken to the state’s capital city (monitored the entire way), where it is processed with all the other tallies and the results are then transferred to a networked computer and posted on a government website for everyone to see immediately.

For national elections, this computer prints out yet another special piece of paper that is carried to Washington, DC and finally counted with all the states’ votes and again, the result is transferred from another custom system (made solely for elections, like all the others previously mentioned) to a computer that is networked and then posted on a government website.

This is probably as secure as you can get, yet it’s fast and effective. The operating system of the kiosks are written to do only these things: present the voter with an aesthetically pleasing and extremely simple interface, allow touch-sensitive selecting of candidates and text input in case the voter’s choice is not on the screen already, then print the result. Nothing more, nothing less. The central kiosks where votes are tallied should be just as minimalistic. Scan and verify the cards, process them, store results in memory in case a taly gets lost (just in case), and print their results. No input other than reading the voting cards is needed.

If you see any shortcomings of this proposal (or just have a comment about it), please post below.

He created Homeland Security which has the sole purpose of surverying the public - which invades our privacy and opens doors for more power abuses than I’m comfortable with - and giving the goverment unprecidented control over the populace. It’ll be kinda like this. Shit like this sucks too. In exchange for what kind of security? This kind. Dunno ’bout you, but untrained citizens on horseback just doesn’t give me that warm fuzzy feeling of security.

The Patriot Act: gives government more power that can and has been abused yet did nothing for our “war” against terrorism. Here’s an analysis, and here’s a nice pdf telling you exactly what’s wrong with it (or here’s a short and sweet plaintext version).

He declared war on terrorism. Fool, you can’t fight an enemy that has no solid identity. Everyone is ALWAYS fighting terrorism, the problem is that it comes in so many forms from so many people against so many other people that the only way to deal with it is to be defensive. Being on offense will only piss people off in other countries for digging in their own business. Having a flexible, adaptable gov’t would help protect us from the bad T’s, and monolithic central gov’ts are just the opposite (the bigger they are, the harder they fall). Bush says he wants smaller gov’t, yet he’s giving it more power than we’ve ever seen.

He loves the big corporations. Witness the sony/mgm and aol/time warner mergers, the death of small businesses by sell-out (see Ted Turner’s article).

As seen in the 9/11 commission report, Bush repeatedly ignored warnings of attack by terrorists, even his Aug6 PDB stating in bold type “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US” etc etc. On a side, to prove all these privacy-invading measures are effective, why don’t we ever hear about threats that were thwarted? This would push up Bush’s ratings (by showing that his policies are actually working), show the terrorists how badass we are (”and never come back!”), and show the people that our gov’t really IS protecting us and not just raping our wallets and freedoms.

He’s destroying our environment, but everyone knows that. He wants to keep using oil, which is costing us hundreds of dollars a MONTH on gas prices (shitty gas mileage and SUVs are partly to blame too, since they drink the shit so fast). Kerry, on the other hand, has the right idea.

This is what Bush has done, and his selling point this election is exactly that: if he’s re-elected, we’ll get more of the same. Fuck that. That’s exactly what I DON’T want. Do the world a favor and vote agaisnt Bush - vote for Kerry.

There are many times when I think of a way to improve things and then they eventually happened. Stuff like physics being the next Big Thing in gaming (btw, the next one will probably be dynamically destructible environments using our new physics toy), the US turning into a unsafe and less free nation, and the fact that Stephan Wolfram is right about the complex universe that we see being ruled by simple laws (well, other scientists have yet to recognize this fact - they’re too busy making shit we don’t want or use). Recognizing this will eventually lead to reality hacks, such as anti-gravity, worm hole travel and other Cool Shit.

Anyway, what’s something that will one day change your everyday life? Frictionless surfaces. The possibilities are endless. No friction means our plumbing system will be cleaner, internal combustion engines will have drastically improved efficiencies (hell, the entire car will benefit - and so will your wallet - from not needing oil or lubricants), no more cleaning windows or even a need for windshield wipers, near-perfect aerodynamics (means more efficient vehicles and planes)… the list keeps going.

We’ll soon (or should) be focusing on the oceans, and how to take better advantage of them. Floating cities will certainly be an interesting addition to the global community. We should learn how to make drinkable water from them soon, which would be nice. Underwater is like a prelude to space, so while our robots jet around up there (by “our” I mean NASA’s, since they’re the only ones who have really explored the solar system and continue to do so), we’ll be preparing for our inevitable (but far off) launch underwater. The ocean still holds more secrets than we can discover in several generations - it’s the second-to-last great frontier.

Humanity’s downfall is his apathy towards the future. He lacks insight, and that’s ok with him.

We think we care so much about our children, when in fact we only care about ourselves (much more) and the children who are currently alive (much less). Children who have yet to be born for several more years are out of luck - we simply don’t care about them because they don’t exist. Why should we? It’s not our problem - we’ll be dead by then. Think of it this way: we live in this retarded world because of the people who have passed before us. I think future generations deserve better than what we’ve been given, but that’s just me.