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To: Tony Viola who wrote (116510)	11/9/2000 4:18:02 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Tony, <It made me think that it actually reminded me a little of the days of looking for a very difficult to find bug in a new computer design. If it's hard enough, before the real one is found, you usually find 5 or 6 other bugs along the way.> So in the case of Florida, the real "bug" is the imprecision of the election results, and the "bugs" they're finding along the way include ballot designs, lost ballot boxes, double-punched ballots, etc. How precise do we want our election results to be? Is it even reasonable to demand even more precision in the results? After all, statistical error is always going to be a factor, meaning that in extremely close races like this one, the winner (like I said before) might as well be determined with the flip of a coin. And even if the results can be determined precisely down to the individual vote, how do we know that every single voter out there would vote the same way tomorrow as they did two days ago? People's opinions change with the wind. In design validation, the amount of validation you do should be directly proportional to the level of reliability you expect. If you had all the time in the world, you can keep validating and validating and continue to find bugs trickling out of the design. But obviously that's not possible due to time-to-market concerns. I think in terms of elections, we'll continue to refine the process, but we can't ever expect the results to be precise down to a single vote. And in extremely close elections, that inherent imprecision will always be a bone to pick for the losers. (Just listen to Daley as an example). Tenchusatsu

To: Tony Viola who wrote (116510)	11/9/2000 4:32:39 PM
From: Amy J	Respond to of 186894

RE: "Amy, I guess I'm the only one wacko enough to keep thinking about fundamentals these days. Anyway, driving home last night, I saw this huge IBM billboard advertising their eServers. It had a jet plane on it, some words about how their servers would get you where you needed to go on the Internet, or something, faster than anyone else. I can't remember the last time I've seen a billboard like that for IBM or any other high tech company here in Si Valley. One of IBM's fastest growing eServer families, if not the fastest, of course, is Intel based" ----------------------- Hi Tony, Thanks for the news on IBM's Intel-based eServers! Re: before the real one is found, you usually find 5 or 6 other bugs along the way. I think that's what is going on with the election results: several nuances" LOL! Your description is funny. And you're probably right. Regards, Amy J