Interesting Stuff

I realize that this would have been more timely before the election, but I’ve come across a very good demonstration of how Diebold voting machines can be compromised without leaving any evidence behind. Seeing this stuff makes it seem much more real than reading about it.

and one more reminder to not trust Wikipedia more than you’d trust a friend of an acquaintance: the entry on Jim Sensenbrenner has had its “controversy” section removed. There is now no mention that Sensenbrenner introduced the controversial PATRIOT and Real ID Acts, nor is there a mention of his travel budget, which is paid for by special interests (against congressional rules) and is the largest of any Congressperson. edit: upon closer reading, these things are sprinkled in among the other sections in the page, but are not as easily accessible as they had been. So remember: don’t trust Wikipedia to be either correct or unbiased, any more than you’d trust anyone you’ve just met. Edit: and don’t trust the pages to keep the same format they have now.

The good news: the president of Diebold resigned after enough problems with the ethics of his company, his products, and his personal business dealings. I maintain that if people are hell-bent on electronic voting (and I personally am hell-bent against it), the system should be transparent and open-source so that anyone can both verify that it is correct and formulate improvements to the system.

The bad news: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran claims that the Holocaust never happened. This is significantly less forgivable than claiming that Israel is a blot in the middle of the Arab world that should be wiped off it. It makes my blood boil to hear people say things like this. I might be able to understand the claims if the Holocaust had happened centuries ago, but some of the people who were in it are still alive today! Is President Ahmadinejad actually trying to claim that my grandfather did not get shipped to France to fight the Nazis? Is he claiming that 20 million Russians did not actually die in some fictional “World War,” and have merely been hiding in their basements lo these past sixty years? He certainly seems to be purporting that everything from Kristallnacht to Auschwitz is an elaborate hoax. Argh!

The ugly news: I have 3 tests to take, a 10-page paper to write, 4 assignments to grade (with 20-ish people turning in each one), 7-ish ACM problems to code up, and 3 more grad school apps that need to be finished this week. I wish I could say I’m almost home, but I’m not.