Spyware Weekly Newsletter :· October 21, 2003 EVoting Machines and fuzzy math. Permlink Top. There is something very wronghappening in the United States concerning a matter of vital national http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/archives/1003/21.php
Extractions: The Spyware Weekly Newsletter is distributed every week to 18,200 subscribers and read online by hundreds of thousands of visitors. Click here to subscribe . To unsubscribe from this newsletter, click the link provided at the bottom of the newsletter. Please read our for quoting guidelines. Old issues are available online . This edition of the Spyware Weekly Newsletter is archived permanently at http://www.spywareinfo.net/oct21,2003 Permlink Top There is something very wrong happening in the United States concerning a matter of vital national importance. Diebold, maker of electronic voting machines and the software that runs them, has issued numerous DMCA "take down" notices Diebold is sending these "take down" notices to sites hosting the memos, web sites linking to the memos on other sites and even web sites that merely link to other web sites which link to other web sites hosting the memos (say that five times fast!). If this obscene abuse of the DMCA goes much further, Diebold may try to take down my site just for mentioning the existence of the memos. Having read some of these infamous memos myself, I can see why Diebold wants to hide them. The memos discuss all manner of unethical, questionable and possibly illegal activity. They raise serious questions about the accuracy and integrity of the voting results as counted by Diebold machines.
Chris's Rants: Fuzzy Math The math isn t just fuzzy, as the current euphemism would have it it is oftendownright misleading, and deliberately so. http://webpages.charter.net/chrisfer/2005/02/fuzzy-math.html
Extractions: @import url("http://www.blogger.com/css/blog_controls.css"); @import url("http://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?blogID=6226528"); @import url(http://www.blogger.com/css/navbar/main.css); @import url(http://www.blogger.com/css/navbar/1.css); BlogThis! My thoughts on whatever strikes my fancy. This NYT Editorial nails it. Whenever the Bush administration wants to sell a costly new program, look carefully before you accept any numbers it puts out. The math isn't just fuzzy, as the current euphemism would have it - it is often downright misleading, and deliberately so. The deficit-addicted government that he [Bush] has created doesn't have enough money coming in to pay for the programs that the public wants and deserves, not to mention the nation's defense. posted by Chris @ Thursday, February 10, 2005 Post a Comment If you'd like to know more about me, visit my web page . The views expressed here are my own and in no way reflect the positions, strategies or opinions of my employer.
Fuzzy Math - All Hat No Cattle New York Times, 712-05 Nearly two years after stating that any administrationofficial found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover CIA http://www.allhatnocattle.net/7-12-05_fuzzy_math_karl_rove.htm
Extractions: The U.S. military has rescinded an order to its personnel to avoid London in the aftermath of the bombings. Personnel, most of them Karl Rove outed a CIA agent through Robert Novak as revenge against Joseph Wilson. What's there not to understand? Indict Karl Rove. Then, roast him over an open "Plame".
13WHAM-TV || Rochester - Parents Question "Fuzzy" Math Penfield, NY Some parents are wondering if a newer way to teach math in someRochesterarea school districts really adds up. They call it fuzzy math. http://www.wokr13.tv/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=4D070317-3E9A-4813-8E36-D0
ROI Calculators: Honest Projections Or Fuzzy Math? ROI calculators Honest projections or fuzzy math? Matt Hines, SearchCIO.com NewsWriter 26 Sep 2002 Rating 3.67- (out of 5) http://searchcio.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid19_gci878083,00.html
Extractions: In a tight economy chief information officers are increasingly being asked to provide hard evidence that new technology investments will deliver guaranteed levels of return on investment (ROI). As a result, tools that help build a business case and illustrate those returns are growing in popularity. Most often referred to as ROI calculators, these applications are being released by everyone from independent third-party outfits to technology vendors themselves. And while this sudden influx of tools gives the average CIO the ability to make a spending case in front of corporate budget watchdogs, there remains a debate as to which ROI calculators if any are the most credible. Nowhere is this demand for measuring returns greater than in cutting edge technology arenas such as e-business or customer relationship management (CRM). After all, it can be difficult to quantify the so-called "soft" returns on investment that come with applications that make your customers happier and more loyal. "If you can relate some kind of hard measurement to the soft calculation, the whole ROI proposition makes more sense," said Alex Soejarto, analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner.
Low Culture: Positive Numbers, Fuzzy Math, And Well-spun Figures Positive numbers, fuzzy math, and wellspun figures. bush_smiling_green.jpg There san undeniable buzz in the air as January 30th, the date of the upcoming http://www.lowculture.com/archives/2005/01/positive_number.html
Extractions: « Made of Clay (low culture) This Year At the Movies: Have A Ball! There's an undeniable buzz in the air as January 30th, the date of the upcoming Iraqi elections, rapidly approaches. It's much akin to that feeling of excitement one gets around the holidays as you watch presents slowly accumulate underneath the family Christmas tree, and they just keep accumulating, and you're all, "Wow, how many of those presents are for me , and what did I get? And since you're such a simpleminded bastard, you hold a press conference, and you talk about how excited you are about your presents. You prattle on and on about how you "think elections will be such a incredibly hopeful experience for the Iraqi people." And you add that 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces "appear to be relatively calm." The four remaining provinces "are places where the terrorists are trying to stop people from voting," [you] said. "So I know it's hard. But it's hard for a reason. And the reason it's hard is because there are a handful of folks who fear freedom." And then this Grinch-like Brent Scowcroft asshole, who served under your dad as his national security adviser, and who just now apparently decided to fucking
Lessons--Schools, Accountability And A Sheaf Of Fuzzy Math Schools, Accountability and a Sheaf of fuzzy math. By Richard Rothstein.An influential liberal advocacy group, the Education Trust, claims to have http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeat_lessons20020410
Extractions: These pieces originally appeared as a weekly column entitled "Lessons" in The New York Times between 1999 and 2003. [THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES ON APRIL 10, 2002] Schools, Accountability and a Sheaf of Fuzzy Math By Richard Rothstein An influential liberal advocacy group, the Education Trust, claims to have demonstrated that simply by adopting higher standards, schools can get disadvantaged children to perform as well as those of the middle class. The group has published a list of "high-flying schools": 1,320 schools nationwide whose test scores are high and at least half of whose students are both poor and minority. At 3,257 other top-scoring schools, at least half the students are either poor or minority, though not both. The schools on each of those lists account for about 10 percent of all schools with identically defined student bodies. The Education Trust maintains that if these schools can get good results by raising expectations and improving instruction, others can do so as well. That is an unfortunate reinforcement of the belief that school reform alone, without more school spending or improved social conditions for families, is enough to lift achievement of the lowest performers. It is actually all three - instructional overhaul, more school spending and social change - that will be needed.
ACS :: Fuzzy Math? According to a new study, patients can be confused by the statistics doctors useto describe the potential benefits of chemotherapy after breast cancer http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_2_1x_Fuzzy_Math.asp
Extractions: According to a new study, patients can be confused by the statistics doctors use to describe the potential benefits of chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery. As a result, some patients may not make fully informed decisions about their treatment, the researchers said. ACS News Center Medical Updates News You Can Use Stories of Hope ... I Want to Help You can help in the fight against cancer. Donate and volunteer. It's easy and fun! Learn more Fuzzy Math? Some Medical Stats Confuse Patients, Influence Treatment Article date: According to a new study, patients can be confused by the statistics doctors use to describe the potential benefits of chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery. As a result, some patients may not make fully informed decisions about their treatment, the researchers said. Chemotherapy after surgery, known as adjuvant chemotherapy, can reduce the risk that breast cancer will recur. But the treatment doesn't always work for every patient and can have unpleasant and serious side effects. The way doctors talk about those pros and cons can influence whether a patient chooses to have chemotherapy, researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, and colleagues report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (Vol. 21, No. 23: 4299-4305).
Amitai Etzioni Notes: Fuzzy Math fuzzy math. Conservatives are said to outnumber liberals in the US by 34% to 21%according to Mark J. Penn, a pollster. By my math that leaves 45% http://www.amitai-notes.com/blog/archives/001005.html
Extractions: Personal and communitarian reflections. Your comments are appreciated. Please send them to aeblog@gwu.edu My blog rests on the Sabbath (and I do too). Conservatives are said to outnumber liberals in the US by 34% to 21% according to Mark J. Penn, a pollster. By my math that leaves 45% unaccounted for. Penn suggests that they are moderates and hence they decided the election. Actually, most of them are conservative to one extent or another. A communitarian message may appeal to many of them but not watered down or camouflaged liberalism. Posted in: Communitarian Thinking
Fuzzy Math In D.C. Don t bank on the numbers the federal government uses in measuring the impact ofIT on the nation s economy. Just take a look at how Washington measures http://www.strassmann.com/pubs/cw/fuzzymath.shtml
Extractions: January 8, 2001 I first learned of the federal government's "hedonic" evaluations of IT budgets during budget reviews in 1992, when a Pentagon financial examiner noted that the Defense Department's requests for 5% annual increases in IT spending would actually be 22.8% in the first year and much more in following years. Such large jumps, the analyst suggested, would be unacceptable. I checked the math. It was numerically correct. The large gains were generated on the basis of tables from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, so that the 5% for 1993 became 22.8% after adding a 17.8% implied annual cost reduction. The White House evaluated IT spending using "inflation-adjusted" comparisons. So a proposal for 5% salary increases would be OK because it matched the government's official "inflationary index." But proposals for computers were different, using a "hedonic deflationary index." This would boost the worth of computer hardware above its cash costs using the numbers indicated on the chart below. Hedonic, derived from the Greek language, means "of or pertaining to pleasure." My budget examiners told me that "hedonic" was an economist's way of saying that customers would be deriving more pleasure from equipment that's better and cheaper to purchase. Checking the supporting data, I found that government economists used a mix of declining wholesale prices for desktops and laptops, plus unit costs of disk memories and printer performance statistics, to come up with indicators that reflected the decreasing cost and increased performance of hardware. So a 700-MHz desktop costing $3,000 would actually be twice as good as a 350-MHz desktop purchased for the same amount.
UFE - Fuzzy Math fuzzy math The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Plan Paul Krugman. If youre likeus, fuzzy math is the kind of book you always hope for, but rarely find. http://www.faireconomy.org/order/books/FM.html
Extractions: Paul Krugman Over the coming months and years, the wisdom, justice and affordability of the Bush tax cuts will be debated over and over. You owe it to yourself to spend a few hours with this book to better understand why we made this costly mistake and what effect it will have if not undone. pp. W.W. Norton: 2001 $17.00
The New Republic Online Fuzzy Math The Iraqi troop numbers Bush used last night were simply not accurate. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=ackerman100104
THE BRAD BLOG: "Iraq Audit Finds More Fuzzy Math!" Iraq Audit Finds More fuzzy math! Money Disappears As If By Magic! Poof! More Than$8 Billion Simply Vanished! Guest blogged by Winter Patriot There s a http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001161.htm
Redmond | News: Opinion On TCO: Fuzzy Math, Fuzzy Logic? Redmondmag.com reader comments for Opinion on TCO fuzzy math, Fuzzy Logic? 4/5/05 arindam sinharay says, wanting literature on fuzzy math andlogic http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=5909
Stupid Evil Bastard: President Bush In Fuzzy Math. President Bush in fuzzy math Very funny music video pieced together by ~15000audio clips fuzzy math 2004 Style Trackback from John P. Hoke s Asylum http://stupidevilbastard.com/index/seb/comments/president_bush_in_fuzzy_math/
BAM: Fuzzy Math, Under The Elms, January/February 2004 fuzzy math. Is needblind changing the calculus of financial aid? By Emily GoldBoutilier. PRICE TAGS. Brown took the moral high ground when it admitted http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/storydetail.cfm?ID=2229
Profs Urge End To Fuzzy Math In California, public funds cannot be used to buy fuzzy math materials.The award of this grant to anticonstructivist activists is widely seen as a clear http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/ml.asp?Issue=NYS/2003/01/06&ID=Ar00104
The Short Run fuzzy math The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Cut by Paul Krugman. Buy it onlineat Amazon Buy it online at Barnes Noble http://www.theshortrun.com/reviews/Fuzzy Math/fm.html
Extractions: Buy it online at Post your own review of this book. Click here Review A professor at Princeton University, Krugman is the author of several novels and an economics textbook. At the same time he writes a bi-weekly column for the New York Times. Krugman chides in this work "On a more personal note, this book offers me an opportunity for a longer form of discussion that can't be squeezed into 735-word columns in the New York Times ." -Daniel Hicks
Extractions: [First published on Salon.com Mitch Daniels was an unusual choice to head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Bush White House. A former political operative and pharmaceutical executive, he was tapped for the position last year despite a lack of experience in the intricacies of the federal budget. Since then, Daniels has become a key figure in the administration , helping design policies and pressing publicly for their enactment. His tenure is significant for more than his political success. It is another sign of the importance P.R. tactics play in American politics. The OMB director once a budget expert is now an operative chosen for his political skills, particularly his ability to sell the administration's economic proposals in the media. In August, Daniels admitted as much, telling the Wall Street Journal that "[t]o the extent I bring anything ... to this job, maybe it's an ability to think about how a product, whether it's Prozac or a president's proposal, is marketed." Predictably, he has displayed a disturbing tendency to make dishonest claims for political advantage on federal budget issues. With the debate about Bush's new budget now well underway, it's time to take a closer look at Daniels and his battles with the truth. A pattern of dissembling Daniels has focused most of his spin on the costs of the Bush tax cut and its effects on the federal budget, subjects that have dominated recent economic debate. Take
