[Voterescue] fractals (was: Re: Record number of U.S. voters may cast paper ballots this year)
Shane Geiger
sgeiger at ncee.net
Fri Aug 8 17:55:58 CDT 2008
Gus_Behr at Dell.com wrote:
>
> I have a problem with being given, by the elitists, which of two
> morons I may choose from to further sink this country into the shitter
> and all the sheoples happy to pull the lever, flip the switch, poke
> the paper or push the button and never ask WTF.
>
> Happy Friday!
>
Do I ever share your ideas, Gus. We need to wake people up to certain
realities to be able to change things.
I think this requires a little out-of-the-box thinking. Here's
something that has been dominating my ideas recently concerning the
culture of corruption: fractals. Fractals are a huge feedback
loop--with the output of one scandal becoming the input of the next.
It's quite simple in nature, but the result is so complex that people
tend not to even believe there is some sort of a problem. The output of
one scandal becomes the funding and the experience to pull off the next
scandal.
FRACTALS
In the early 1980s, computers made it possible to view the Mandelbrot
set for the first time. It was never viewed before then because it
requires millions of calculations.
The Mandelbrot set is the most well known fractal. Its formula can be
expressed very simply: Z = z^2 + C Yet, this is an infinitely complex
fractal, as you can see in some of the pictures here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set
A new mathematics based upon fractals has emerged--one that can be used
to describe much more complex things in nature.
"Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not
circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight
line." - Benoit Mandelbrot, 1983
If you page through this PDF file you can see the various steps in
creating the "fractal" known as a dragon curve:
http://www.ncee.net/shane/dragon_curve.pdf
Here are the very simple steps used to produce the dragon curve:
1. Start with a single segment--two points with a line drawn between them.
2. For each segment, replace the segment with two segments that form a
"V" with a 90 degree angle and whose other points take the original
places of the original segment, alternating between a V (down) and a ^ (up).
3. Repeat the last step indefinitely. (This doubles the number of
segments each time.)
As you can see, these simple steps produce something very complex--a
fern-like fractal--because the output of one step becomes the input of
the next in a sort of "feedback loop."
Interestingly, many things found in nature look like fractals. This is
no coincidence, as many (perhaps all) things found in nature are made
from simpler things. (For instance, plants and animals are made of
DNA. DNA is made of proteins, which are made of amino acids...and on
down to molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. Non-living things
also have this nature.)
The relatively simple DNA that changes over time produces various quite
amazing creatures through evolution, as any student of nature knows.
>
>
> *From:* voterescue-bounces at voterescue.org
> [mailto:voterescue-bounces at voterescue.org] *On Behalf Of *Timms Christina
> *Sent:* Friday, August 08, 2008 1:55 PM
> *To:* chamade at chamade.com; Laura Westcott; voterescue at voterescue.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Voterescue] Record number of U.S. voters may cast
> paper ballots this year
>
>
>
> I still have a problem with the whole idea that first time voters are
> going to be “confused” about how to use the paper ballot. I’m sorry
> but its not rocket science, I think young voters deserve a little more
> credit
>
>
> On 8/7/08 3:55 PM, "chamade at chamade.com" <chamade at chamade.com> wrote:
>
> Actually yes. Thanks to Katrina and other natural disasters, the
> price of wood has risen dramatically. We ship cardboard to China
> where they recycle
> it and send it back to us. But paper prices have risen a lot!
>
> At 02:53 PM 8/7/2008, Laura Westcott wrote:
>
> Wonder why counties have to "spend tens of millions of dollars
> printing ballots"...are paper prices rising too?
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 1:34 PM, Jenny Clark <jclark99 at austin.rr.com >
> wrote:
>
> http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/nation/08/07/08
> 07papervoting.html
>
> PAPER BALLOTS
> Record number of U.S. voters may cast paper ballots this year
> Many officials shelving electronic devices over glitches, hacker fears.
> By Allison Hoffman
> ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
> Thursday, August 07, 2008
> SAN DIEGO - Come November, more Americans might cast their ballots on
> paper than in any other election in U.S. history.
> That wasn't supposed to happen. If everything had gone according to
> the government's $3 billion plan to upgrade voting technology after
> the hanging-chad fiasco in Florida in 2000, that sentence would read
> "electronic machines" instead of paper.
> Instead, thousands of touchscreen devices are collecting dust in
> warehouses from California to Florida, where officials worried about
> hackers and fed up with technical glitches have replaced the equipment
> with scanners that will read paper ballots.
> An Associated Press Election Research survey has found that 57 percent
> of the nation's registered voters live in counties that will be
> relying on paper ballots this fall.
> The number of registered voters in jurisdictions that will rely mainly
> on electronic voting machines has fallen from a high of 44 percent
> during the 2006 midterm elections to 36 percent. (Much of the rest of
> the electorate consists of voters in New York state, who will be using
> old-fashioned pull-lever machines.)
> In fact, because of growth in the electorate, expansion of absentee
> voting rules, and expectations of high turnout for the contest between
> presumptive presidential nominees Democrat Sen. Barack Obama and
> Republican Sen. John McCain, some experts are predicting a record
> number of Americans will cast ballots on paper this year.
> "More people will be using computer-read paper ballots than at any
> other time in the nation's history," said Kimball Brace, head of
> Election Data Services, a consulting firm. "As you get more registered
> voters and more people in the pool, it exacerbates this bigger issue
> of paper."
> In 2000, about 97 million registered voters lived in counties that
> relied on some form of paper ballot, Brace said. The number is
> expected to top 100 million this fall, according to the AP data.
> The return to paper creates extra stress on an already-strapped
> election system. Cash-poor counties will have to spend tens of
> millions of dollars printing ballots. Voters, many of them
> first-timers, may wind up confused by the ballot formats and
> frustrated by long lines of people waiting to use the scanners.
> All states but Idaho have junked the punch-card ballots that caused so
> much trouble in Florida. But many plan to use paper ballots that
> require voters to fill in ovals with a pen.
> "After 2000, there was a widespread revulsion about paper - everyone
> had the mental image of the guy cross-eyed looking at the punch-card
> ballot," said Doug Chapin, director of the watchdog Electionline. "But
> there's no silver bullet. You're trading one set of problems for another."
>
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--
Shane Geiger
IT Director
National Council on Economic Education
sgeiger at ncee.net | 402-438-8958 | http://www.ncee.net
Leading the Campaign for Economic and Financial Literacy
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