Nevada's now has e-voting machines with paper-trails. They're the first to manage this meager feat. The fuss that the e-voting companies have been kicking up about implementing auditable paper records sends chills down my spine -- it's hard to think of a reason for these companies to pretend it's impossible to get computers to print things on paper (unless, of course, they actually were planning on rigging an election). Well, Nevada has developed an actual counterexample to the e-voting companies' ridiculous claims. Good for them! It almost makes you feel guilty about filling their state with nuclear waste.

The electronic voting issue hasn't raised enough eyebrows this year. I think that's probably because people don't understand the grave threat that computer programmers like myself pose to democracy. But to do so, you really only have to know three things about programmers:

• They think they're much, much smarter than everyone else.


• They are much, much smarter than everyone else about technology, but are significantly dumber about most other things.


• And finally, a lot of them are asshole libertarians of the worst sort.

This is a combination that's primed to do clever things to save America from its hopelessly misguided self.

Even more horrifying, the folks at Diebold, one of the biggest vendors (and certainly the one that's gotten the most press thanks to its CEO's status as an outspoken Bush supporter) seems to have substandard engineers who exhibit all of the above negative traits, yet built their system on top of an unsecured version of Windows 98, opening the door to election tampering from an even larger pool of evil nerds.

I have absolutely no doubt that many software engineers would tamper with election software if they had the opportunity. I don't think they'd do this without getting caught, but it's likely that an awful lot of votes would be lost in the process. It looks like Nevada's leading the charge on stopping this, and I for one am grateful. Enough so that I think I'll go lose some money in its casinos at the next available opportunity.

UPDATE: I mistakenly indicated above that Diebold's voting system runs on an unsecured copy of Win 98. Actually, it can run on any variant of Win32 (ie 98 and above). That copy can be secured as well as any vanilla install of the given version of Windows. What's not secured at all is the MS Access database that contains the voting records, or the administrator password of the GEMS system. This url contains a thorough explanation of how to circumvent the system -- it's an obvious exploit that's easy to pull off (in fact, it's tough to call it an exploit -- "using MS Access" is more like it). The authors conclude that these vulnerabilities are so gaping and widespread that they must have been left deliberately. I don't know if I'd go that far (although I could be talked into it), but whatever state election officials paid money for this system -- and yes, it is being used "in the wild" -- ought to be fired. And maybe jailed.

I should note that this vulnerability applies to "GEMS" -- the management software that would be used collect and count votes from individual machines in an election official's office. There are some accounts that claim the voting machines have a backdoor as well, but I have yet to find any thorough documentation on this.

anyone want to go to this with me tonight? the tornado warning might deter some people, but i spit in the face of terrible weather!

i cannot let the lovefest for whole foods that i see amongst so many people of my age and economic class continue. jesus. when did where you buy your groceries become a status symbol? i know i'm going to get shit for this, but i can't help it: i burn with hatred for whole foods. especially after moving to a neighborhood where my grocery shopping options are between the P street whole foods or the 9th street giant. it's a choice between me busting into a yuppie-fueled rage and running over some hipsters with my shopping cart, or getting mugged in a parking lot after buying some crappy produce. lately, the latter is sounding much more appealing.

i don't want to offend anyone who shops there - i think being all organic and stuff is a good idea. but there are certain things i am not willing to endure in order to buy groceries (of which whole foods has, by the way, an incredibly limited selection). #1 is ridiculous prices. i cannot get eggs for under $10 there. #2 is taking an act of god to manuver my way past all the yuppie hipsters (can i make up a word for these people? yupsters? yes, i realize i am a yupster and that this term has already probably been made up) who stand around in the aisles for 15 minutes making their choices between 32 brands of organic wheat berry bran cereal. #3 is wanting to kill everyone there, from the SUV driving gas guzzlers who think they doing all good healthy environmental things by shopping there, to the sorts of people who actually eat stuff named "Eden Organic Edensoy Extra" or "EnviroKidz Organic Crispy Rice Bars", to the people who are willing to go way out of their way to drive to this store and spend hundreds of dollars on organic food that you could get for half the price by DRIVING TO TRADER JOE'S.

which brings me to my next issue: when the fuck is d.c. going to get a trader joe's? i've only been living in the city for a week and i'm already dying for it. i was unfortunate enough to only discover this gem of a grocery store in the past six months, but i shopped there as much as i could in the short time that we had together. $4 bottles of wine? gorgonzola walnut tortellini that tastes as good as something you could get in italy? being able to spend under $50 to supply yourself with a week's worth of healthy, delicious groceries? that's the life.

the couple of things i will grant whole foods is that they seem to have excellent produce, and their storebrand olive oil is really good and cheap. but that's it. i've shopped there twice in the past few days, and i know that if i have to go again, the experience is probably going to end with me shoving a plantain up someone's butt. so fare thee well, obnoxious whole foods - you can find me making weekend pilgrimages to the trader joe's in tyson's corner.

Chemical pollution specialist John Emsley on NPR, about 1 minute ago: "Most people don't realize that nearly every product they buy contains chemicals."

Hmm...

did anyone else watch serena/capriati last night? i only caught the last ten minutes, since we went to meet kriston, matt and susan last night for half-priced belgian beer at bohemian cavern. but man, that was one bad call that i saw in a point in the last game, and apparently there were several more like it.

Capriati played superbly, without a doubt, but what always will be remembered is the miscue by chair umpire Mariana Alves of Portugal. She awarded the point to Capriati after Williams hit a backhand that landed in — and was ruled good by the line judge.

"I don't need to see the replay. I know my shots. Not only was it in, it wasn't even near the line," said Williams, who couldn't defend her 2002 Open title because of left knee surgery that forced her to miss eight months. "But I'm not making excuses. I didn't lose because of that. I probably should have closed her out in the second set."

It was eerily reminiscent of Wimbledon, where Venus Williams (news - web sites) lost in the second round after Karolina Sprem was mistakenly awarded an extra point in the final-set tiebreaker. Venus didn't argue at all, saying later she was confused; chair umpire Ted Watts was kicked out of the tournament.

Alves won't officiate another match during the Open, said tournament referee Brian Earley, who acknowledged the overrule by Alves was wrong.

"I'd prefer she not umpire at my court anymore," Serena Williams said. "She's obviously anti-Serena."

what was really amazing was the computer recreations the channel was showing of the ball bouncing. apparently it could recreate exactly how the ball went and where it landed. i'd never seen that before. how do they do this?? tommy suggested that perhaps there is some chip implanted inside the ball? but i found that doubtful - would they really implant chips in every ball used in major matches? anyway, it was kind of amazing. there must be some crazy new cameras working the court.

i hadn't seen a tennis match in a while, and it definitely made me want to play again. are there any good courts in d.c.? i almost yearned for the days of high school tennis team, where we didn't have line judges and i could make my own dirty calls.