One vote per person, more or less….

I have been reading a fair bit about electronic voting machines recently because we are talking about them in one of my classes. While I’ve waded through some pretty dry accounts of the vulnerabilities of these machines, this report with an associated video showing the ease with which Sequoia voting systems machines can be hacked using a brief exposure the the configuring computer with a USB drive. [via Boing Boing] The video also shows how various types of exploits might look to the voter and could be designed to even work in the face of physical paper-tape confirmations of the … Continue reading One vote per person, more or less….

No Boom Yet

I had a few students express relief yesterday that the world did not end. Being the kill joy that I always am, I pointed out something that the media coverage did not seem to focus on – the risk of the world ending was only supposed to come when they started colliding particles at near-light speeds, which isn’t scheduled to happen for a few weeks still. So, if you are inclined that way, keep your panic hats on… For those interested in knowing a little more about the collider without jumping headfirst into the CERN documentation, I’d recommend checking out … Continue reading No Boom Yet

Build-a-Bot Workshop

I cannot decide what if anything I want to use this for, but this is a very nice little tutorial on writing your own IM bot. [via Lifehacker] It presumes you know how to do the server-side scripting (though they do give a nice sample php script so you can see there really isn’t anything IM specific in there) and the tutorial just shows how to IMified service to host a bot for you. Right now IMified is in beta, so you can get an account free, but it looks like they may start charging later so if you think … Continue reading Build-a-Bot Workshop

Chrome, Day Two

Oddly, Chrome actually imported all of my bookmarks except the one in my “Daily” folder to my weblog management system (I clear through spam comments and the like each morning). It took me probably ten minutes to figure out how to add a bookmark. There isn’t a Bookmark menu anymore. There is a Bookmark folder, but you can’t add a bookmark from there. Right clicking on the page, or it’s tab, doesn’t do it. Right clicking on the URL in the address bar doesn’t do it. It turns out there are two ways to do it – either click on … Continue reading Chrome, Day Two

Initial Thoughts on Chrome

The Google Chrome browser came out this afternoon, and after reading the comic book description of its features and innovations I wanted to give it a try. The ideas behind it seemed intriguing, and I’m willing to admit that I’m a bit of a Google fangirl. I used it for the afternoon and evening, performing a variety of tasks including working with my course management software and the college’s registration/enrollment system, checking email, and generally websurfing, for work and for pleasure. Installation, as you would expect, is easy, and, if you are using Firefox at least, if you let it … Continue reading Initial Thoughts on Chrome