Sunday, October 06, 2002

Latin America: Lula ahead but may not have enough.....yet. Diebold/Procomp machines used by all voters Lula Da Silva appears to have garnered 49% of the vote, a resounding victory for the presidency of Brazil even if it is not enough for him to win it in the first round. A runoff election against Jose Serra will be necessary. Seems like he will surely win that second round as Mr. Serra has receieved only 20% of the vote, followed closely by the other two candidates.As usual people in Rio de Janeiro used this as an excuse to party. Speaking of which, while both the US and Venezuela have problems counting votes, Brazil uses 406,000 voting machines made by Procomp, a Diebold subsidiary. Diebold bought Brazilian Procomp in 1999 and this is not the first time that the machines are succesfully used. The exact results will be known tonight due to the automation process (Disclosure: The company I work for has a joint venture with Diebold but not on election machines) 8:01:22 AM    comment []

Garbage Science or is the sun going to explode Was a little concerned when I read this article on Yahoo about the fact that the sun's temperature is going up significantly and some scientist from Holland named Piers Van der Meer saying the sun may go supernova in six years. From my perspective this would be, to say the least, undesirable. However, Google solves the probelm quickly when I found this more reliable source, from Cornell saying that Dr. Van der Meer is not an author of any papers on astromony and better yet, our sun does not ahve the mass required for a supernova. There is also no mention of the good Dr. on the European Space Agency website and no news on the SOHO website. You would think the sun exploding in six years would rate at least a press release, no? It would make important science even if it reveals no new novel physics. 7:49:04 AM    comment []