Hacker News Reader

return-valueon Confessions of a Fake News Writer

Sure, it’s danish though, called Weekendavisen. Until earlier this year it didn’t have digital news, they do have a digital edition now, but I’ve never used it.

return-valueon Confessions of a Fake News Writer

Even when stories aren’t made up there seem to be a clear focus on generating attention, because our attention is the real product on free news. That’s had a social media effect on news, and much like our Instagram profiles, it’s so heavily edited, that truth has lost its place, even when people aren’t intentionally lying. Obviously there is a difference, but I think it’s getting smaller by the minute.

This is exactly why I pay for news. Because fake or not, my attention is worth more to me than what everyone of the free media outlets are giving me in return.

I have a subscription to a news paper, that only comes out once a week and only has paid content. By only coming out once a week, I get the added benefit of its content being the digested sum of what actually mattered. If something dramatic happens, that I can’t wait to read about, I’ll turn on public service.

The only area where I’m not doing this is in tech, but tech news aren’t really important.

I do feel sorry for the author, I know the guilty learn not to feel guilty, but lying for a living must be absolutely terrible in the long run.

return-valueon A Letter From Winston Churchill’s Disappointed Mother

but Winston you are old enough to see how serious this is to you—& how the next year or two & the use you make of them, will affect your whole life

She sounds like a terrible mother, but those lines aren’t wrong. I squandered a lot of my youth, and I’m paying the price now. I can’t change it, and even if I could I doubt my younger self would take it serious, but how you spend your twenties really determine how you spend the next 40 years of your life. That’s not to say you can’t change or catch up, Churchill is a testimony to that, but the hard work won’t do itself.

return-valueon Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

We count votes several times, using different people. All counting is done under observation. Everyone on the ballot can demand a recount under their supervision, within reason (you can’t demand infinite recounts).

The people who count votes are either trusted employees of the muniplacity, members of a politician party or NGOs. I guess in a two party system it’s hard to understand why politician party members are impartial, but when you have several parties they govern each other + they don’t get to count their own votes, and there is at least one recount of only officials.

I’m not sure what system would be safer.

Without a paper trail you have no evidence. I guess you could use blockchain, but realistically, it would never be decentralized and 99% of the voters wouldn’t understand it well enough to know whether or not the software actually did what they intended, making it much unsafer.

return-valueon Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

Can’t you vote by mail in month leading up to the election?

We can, that’s what I do since I’m working on election days.

return-valueon Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

Well, it’s sent to your address.

We do have a central registry of every citizen, so I guess that might scare some Americans.

You don’t need that though, you could pick up your registration at any municipality with your ID. That’s how I vote, I work from before the voting starts to after it closes, so I vote via mail.

return-valueon Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

We don’t require ID as such. Every citizen is issued a little piece of paper that they can trade in for a ballot for that specific election.

We used to look people up in big books, that are printed for the occasion, to make sure their piece is valid and they haven’t already voted - which took a long time and led to queues. That’s the part we digitized.

But you can vote without ID as long as you have that piece of paper and know your birthdate.

I’m actually not sure how the homeless vote (they can’t receive the piece of paper), but I guess they probably do a mail vote at their local municipality.

return-valueon Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

I work for the municipality of Skanderborg, Denmark. We have what we call digital elections, but what’s digitized is the registration process. Basically every adult gets a voting card with their information + a barcode, we scan those barcodes when they turn up to receive their ballot(is that the right word for voting list?), and then they are registered.

The actual voting takes place on paper, and while it takes time to prepare the ballots and count the votes, the process of voting doesn’t take very longer than a few minutes for the individual citizen. From they enter the voting place till they are done.

I think that’s the way to digitize elections, you make them speedy for the citizens, but safe for democracy.

I can’t for the life of me understand why you would ever do a digital vote. It’s just so risky. I guess you save money by adding effectiveness to the process surrounding an election, preparing ballots and counting votes, but those parts of the process are owned by the public sector and I don’t think the government should ever value the safety of our democracy as less important than money. We count votes by enlisting employees of the municipality, members of political parties and paid help from local NGOs, and everything is monitored and counted a few times. It’s a little taxing, but everyone involved enjoy the process, and financially it’s not that expensive compared to paying a license for voting machines.