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SitemapMay 3, 2005
Incredibly, I am not giving up on the blog. I have been on an extended hiatus while the PowerBook went through multiple repairs, but I am back now, and hoping to make the site better, bigger, and full of fresh content. Okay, by my standards that means one new page, but that is a start. i am working on a bio of myself, which is lacking in any form or detail, but what the hey, right? Check it out.
March 2, 2005
Well, I am back - gone longer than I expected, too. Have found myself occupied with music (Nero) as well as with work, and the ongoing search for more of it (and more pay, too). So far the music is well, I have still failed to send my powerbook in for repair, and I have my application in where I hope it will do some good. Next on the list, after the powerbook repair, is getting school 'done'. Wish me the best of luck.
February 1, 2005
Yesterday I spent the whole day in Eugene, working on the next Nero CD, and making the rounds. In all the excitement I missed the announcement of the latest revision to the PowerBook line. Now my machine is starting to look a little old... maybe I can trade it for a new one? I've been burning DVDs at 2x for 2 long 2 underestimate what an 8x drive would do for me. And a 100GB hard drive sure wouldn't hurt. Maybe the folks will want my PowerBook, and I can get myself the latest edition? On second thought, it's not so bad, but I wish I could upgrade my drives! Of course, more RAM would be a more logical use of funds... time to get a job!
January 23, 2005
Well, another year is well under way, and my rant is slowly growing longer. People are beginning to discover this website, which is a wonderful surprise. If you are new, please drop a line and let me know that you have visited, or post a public comment anonymously on the blog. I take your interest seriously, and do make an effort to respond. Check the faster loading pics page for an example. The web is built on love!
January 8, 2005
Having failed to blog consistently through the holidays, I am back in the new year, upset at the inevitable recrowning of King W, but happy that at least this time, one senator (Barbara Boxer of CA) was willing to step up and take one for the people. This country is trying to pretend the biggest election fraud in the world is not real. Get over it? Them's fightin' words.
December 11, 2004
Show last night was a nice small crowd, good vibes, and no problems from neighbors. Nero is emboldened by the experience. Perhaps the mighty war machine can be stopped by the convergence of forces that music and politics provides? We shall see...
December 10, 2004
In the course of philosophy, even the mundane can become profound. Such as the simple phrase "Here goes Nothing." Ponder and reflect.
December 9, 2004
Today I joined some new webrings, and had some thoughts about my career options. I think I may have to go into business. In the meantime, I have been preoccupied with music and with politics. Unfortunately, the efforts to count the vote in the US are not going as well as in the Ukraine. Apparently our exported democracy is much more reliable than the kind we keep at home.
December 1, 2004
If you have not noticed, I am taking to the 'blogosphere' by fits and starts. Here on my comcast homepage, you can follow the gradual development of my html skills, as well as learn a little about me, what I do, and perhaps, what I can do for you. Maybe I have done something already?
November 20, 2004
On a lighter note, I had a thought today:
All tables should have exactly three feet. This is common sense, and basic geometry. So why are so many tables made with a four foot design? It is baffling.
November 17, 2004 - About those vote machines...
I am no neo-luddite, but this has got me hot and bothered in the worst kind of way... This is some anecdotal evidence that any geek could love to hate...(edited for brevity/readability)
This was a reply in an Ohio forum thread posted by DU newcomer WhiteKnight1.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
About the me:
I have a graduate degree in computer science, and more than 15 years of experience as a software engineer working with highly reliable systems.I have a knack for looking at the results of software failures and figuring out what's wrong with the code. For now, I prefer to remain anonymous and will go by the handle: WhiteKnight
(email: whiteknightfordemocracy@yahoo.com ).
About the bizzare vote counts in one Ohio Precinct:
After seeing the Associated Press story titled "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes", I started thinking about the numbers reported in the story, whichare:
Votes for Bush: 4258
Votes for Kerry: 260
Total number of voters: 638
It also says that Bush "actually received 365 votes". That means there must have been 13 votes for other candidates (638-260-365 = 13).
I wondered how this result could have been produced. They called it a "failure", but I know a lot about how systems can fail, and this sounded fishy. Why were Kerry's vote totals recorded properly, but not Bush's? It's much more likely that a system failure would cause either no vote totals to be recorded at all, or that both totals would be corrupted.
I suppose it could have been a hardware failure that occurred right after Kerry's vote total had been written to storage, and just as Bush's was being written. But that's likely to be a very narrow time window. It's possible, but sounds like a very rare failure mode. It just seems odd that out of the whole universe of possible failures, we get a failure that records Kerry's votes correctly, and corrupts Bush's total.
Think of it this way: In basketball you know there are many ways a shot can fail to go in. It can go off the glass and miss, it can bounce off the front of the rim, rattle out, airball etc... etc... But there is one particular failed shot that's very rare: when the ball comes in at just the right trajectory with just the right speed, and it lodges between the rim and the backboard - just sticks there. I've seen it happen maybe a couple of times in years of watching the NBA.
So think of the odds of a failure that records Kerry's votes correctly, but corrupts Bush's as analogous to the ball jamming there between the rim and backboard. Pretty rare failure huh? Well, it gets even worse:
Why was the number off by only several thousand?
If the votes are added up using a 4 byte unsigned integer, then the possible values range from 0 to 4,294,967,296 (over 4 Billion). If a random bit error or hardware storage error occurred, then why didn't Bush get say 3,239,568 extra votes in this particular "failure"? Most true failures would result in some wild number that you would immediately recognize as garbage.
The analogy here is: not only did the basketball lodge between rim and glass, but the Spalding logo ended up perfectly horizontal, aligned front and center.
Given all of this, I decided to explore ways that vote counting software could end up with these particular results. Was someone adding a percentage to the Bush votes? Was there some multiplier involved?
After thinking about it for an hour or so, I decided to take a different tack: think like the person who is trying to rig the election. What would you do? You wouldn't really want to change the total number of voters. That might be too easy to detect given people being checked off on voter roles. Instead you would want to shift votes from one candidate to another. Maybe every 10th vote for kerry, you'd instead give to Bush.
OK, that's pretty easy to program, but it wouldn't expain the bizzare results in this one precinct in Ohio. But... what if the evil programmer made a mistake? Maybe one line of code had an error they didn't catch.
I decided to write a small vote counting program, and add in a function to steal every 10th vote. Once that was working I'd introduce a small error and see if the results came close the Ohio results reported by AP.
The program below is the result.
As you will see, there is one line of code that is supposed to add a stolen vote to Bush's total, and should be written as:
b = b + 1;
but (I theorize) it was mis-typed as:
b = b + k;
So instead of adding one stolen vote to Bush's total, it adds the running total of Kerry votes to Bush's total. Whoops!
The output from the program with the typo in place is:
starting election
Election results: b: 4258 k: 260 o: 13
(the actual votes: b: 336 k: 288 o: 14)
The output from the program with the typo corrected is:
starting election
Election results: b: 365 k: 260 o: 13
(the actual votes: b: 336 k: 288 o: 14)
So the intent was to shift 29 votes from other candidates to Bush, but the one-line programming mistake gives him an extra 3922 votes.
I'm not saying this proves that this is what happened, but it does indeed prove that a small, one-line programming error by an evildoer programmer could produce the results seen in this one Ohio precinct.
-WhiteKnight
p.s. Please circulate this as far and wide as possible. Thanks!
November 15, 2004
Okay folks, I have been reading up, and it is now clear that this election was manipulated and predetermined by the use of partisan vote counters. Diebold, ESandS, Sequoia, are among the companies responsible for making the coup look legit. With some eager assistance from the AP and the so-called mainstream press. I am too busy to tell all here, so try whatreallyhappened.com, or 
blackboxvoting.org for more info on how W fucked it up for all of us.
Extra credit to anybody who drafts articles of impeachment!
Here's what George thinks of the American people:
November 1, 2004
Well, it seems that the 'deserter and thief' is trying hard to push the election his direction. Thankfully we can still vote his ass out. Get to it folks! If you already gave him your vote, shame on you!! Find a way to get your vote 'uncounted' ASAP.
Oct21
Okay, today my rant is not too strident. Simple and direct.
Gas at 2.99!?!? I'm moving to Europe.
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Last edit July 9, 2007
