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Rick Falkvinge responds to the European Commission about the inadvisability of mixing DRM and law (in English, despite the preamble in Swedish, even though he is the “founder and leader of the Pirate Party movement and leader of the Swedish Pirate Party”).

[Via Waffle.]

Contrast this story at Daring Fireball, refering to this “Can You Count on Voting Machines?” story at the New York Times, with this article from our local paper regarding New York State’s tardiness in complying with the Help America Vote Act. Choice lines in the first two graphs:

“State officials took another step in New York’s slowest-in-the-nation process of implementing an election-modernization law by filing a court-ordered timetable for having accessible voting equipment by September of this year and replacements for lever voting machines by fall 2009.

Board of Elections officials, who were excoriated by U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe last month for running afoul of the Help America Vote Act, said the plan calls for the board to decide Jan. 23 which machines counties can choose for the disabled.” [My emphasis, especially on “excoriated.”]

I’m all for accessible voting machines, if indeed our level-based ones and whatever alternatives are offered are not sufficient. But I’m a computer person, and as in the Daring Fireball commentary, I’m generally against implementing these new electronic voting systems just for the sake of having something new. There seem to be major problems with the systems that have been in the news, and I have a hard time wanting to lay our democracy on them at this time. Therefore, I have to wonder if New York State’s delay isn’t actually for the better.

(I wish I had a link handy at this very moment for the simple paper-based system I came across a few months ago, which sounded like a great solution that allowed anonymity, automated counting, and a verifiable vote.)

Well, after all the work and preparations for lots of software development and information technology organizations, I’d like to wish everyone a happy daylight-saving time change in 2007. Overnight, we spring forward. Hopefully, it’s going to be a non-event …

Here’s a tip o’ the hat to Congress and the president, without whom this exciting event could not have happened!

I came across this little bit of amusement about braces in Python somewhere:


>>> from __future__ import braces
File "", line 1
SyntaxError: not a chance


“Not a chance,” indeed. It’s apparently against the Python philosophy. Since I’ve struggled with the braces-and-semicolons everywhere in Perl, this just makes me happy. Hehe.

In New York State, we still use levers to vote. It may have brought fines or other tribulations from the federal government, thanks to the Help America Vote Act—as a good New Yorker, I’m oblivious—but I happen to think the levers work pretty darned well. The low-tech approach is fine by me; perhaps I’m enough of a pessimistic technologist to appreciate the simplicity, pragmatism, and relative reliability of mechanical voting.

In any case, Christen and I voted very early today, at my urging. In our district, I was voter #7 (the magic number, of course!) and she was one spot ahead of me. It’s good we got there so early, since there were twice as many cars in the lot when we left. The stream of voters was certainly picking up as we hi-fived our way out of the polling place.

For our efforts, we received “I voted today!” stickers. I promptly had mine fall off my coat on the way into work, from all appearances. Why, oh why, did the election volunteer affix it to my outerwear?

This was sad, as there are some special offers available today to people bearing the stickers. I know this because Christen called to tell me about one. Equally as important as discounts, you also get nods of respect from the huddled masses you meet during the day, just for doing your civic duty. It’s so clearly a win-win that I shouldn’t need to explain it.

Beyond that, you can also make hand motions while you say catch phrases like “Rock the vote!” with a relatively straight face, because you’ve just rocked the vote and there’s a good chance that an estimated 60% or more of the adults you meet this Election Day won’t have bothered to make their voice heard by … er, um … quietly pulling levers.

On my way back to my car in the afternoon, I was astounded to find an “I voted today!” sticker on the ground. What were the odds?

Even more amazing, I turned it over to find fuzz that may have come from my snazzy new woolen coat. It must have been my long lost sticker! That turned my earlier dejection into a broad grin.

Rock the vote! (If you’re in an electronic state, roxxor the vote!)