Less buggy systems? What, and put us all out of work? ;->
Technology is like the tax code.... The more perfect you try to make it, the
more work it creates for those whose job it is to guide people through it.
Uh uh. I say throw out the machines and go back to quill pen and parchment.
I mean, consider that with such primitive tools were written the Magna
Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the English
Bill of rights, the Gettysburg Address.
Take a look around your local Walden Books to see the output of our current
technology. I mean, is there anyone who will argue that Isaac Asimov's
writing improved after he started using word processors instead of
typewriters?
By the way, do you all realize that in the very first presidential election
in this country, in a nation of nine million people, voters could choose
among George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin
Franklin, John Jay, John Adams.
Today, in a nation of a quarter of a billion, we get to choose among Gore,
Bush, Nader, and Buchanan. This of course proves that Darwin was wrong.
old joke, but works even better than it did 30 years ago ;-> )
As for what we do - routers make the internet happen, the internet in turn
supposedly makes it possible for us to communicate better, and we still have
people on this list asking how many questions are on the test and what's the
passing score.
So much for the "information" age.
Guess I should go back to my studying. Curmudgeons need not apply.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of
Priscilla Oppenheimer
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 7:14 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: O/T ballots-per-second musings
Has anyone figured out the ballots-per-second (bps) transmission rate for
the ballots that travelled in a Ryder truck from Palm Beach County to
Tallahassee? &;-)
Seriously, do we recognize how ridiculous this situation is? With current
technology, the data should have arrived in seconds. We seem to have
scraped by the year 2000 without any major disasters caused by Y2K bugs.
However, the year 2000 election is a victim of ancient, buggy punch-card
readers. I call this the E2K problem.
The punch card readers in Miami-Dade County were unable to detect a vote
for president on 10,000 ballots. That's outrageous! Regardless of any
political wrangling about the significance of this problem, as computer
professionals, we should be asking ourselves, how could this happen?
We now have two kinds of proof (Y2K and E2K) that we need to take a more
active role in working with our users to dump ancient systems and upgrade
to newer and less buggy solutions. That's not an easy task, of course.
Finances, office politics, and risk aversion are just some of the many
reasons that users don't upgrade. But what are we doing to be more
proactive? Are we monitoring our systems to determine their fragility? Are
we taking action when we recognize potential problems? Are we designing
reliable systems that can adapt to changes? Or are we hiding behind our
21-inch monitors and praying that nothing bad will happen on our shift?
I'd like to see the computer industry get serious about developing less
buggy systems and upgrading legacy systems that are failure-prone. I'd
welcome a technical (non-political) discussion on this topic. Thanks for
listening to my ravings. &;-)
Priscilla
________________________
Priscilla Oppenheimer
http://www.priscilla.com
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