Remote Access is Easy (sometimes)

The New York Times just posted an answer to a question regarding remote access for helping someone troubleshoot their computer. I have to admit that a few years ago I tried using Windows Remote Desktop and VNC. I never had good results with these solutions. The setup is too difficult, even for someone reasonably tech savvy. The worst part was getting everything configured properly on the remote computer, then having the settings change by the time I wanted to use it. I do not log into my mother's computer regularly, only when she is having an issue and I am not visiting soon.

But recently I found a better solution, and it was almost by accident. One function I do use regularly is automatic syncing for backup in the background. I was very impressed with what Microsoft Live Sync did and it actually worked on Mac OSX Tiger before they broke it. However, when it left Beta and stopped working on Tiger, I heard about Microsoft Live Mesh. I do not think anybody understands why Live Sync and Live Mesh are separate products, but the point is that Live Mesh accomplishes the same syncing features plus some more. I switched over to Mesh in order to take advantage of the Online Backup feature. Up to 2 gigs can be sync'ed between computers AND a copy is stored on the web. Very useful! And you cannot beat the price (that would be zero dollars and zero cents!)

However, Live Mesh also has a Device Connect feature that is absolutely worth trying. What it does is basically take away all of the setup hassles. If the computer is turned on and connected to the internet, you click the Connect button and wait while it makes sure nobody is actively working on the computer at the moment. Next thing you know you are looking at the screen as though you were sitting in front of that computer. That in itself would be enough to make this worthwhile. However, Microsoft added a few nice touches that I have not seen elsewhere (though I am not an expert, this might be standard in remote utilities today). First, you can hide the display on the local computer. This is great because I used this feature to log into a computer for the purpose of updating billing records. Even when I feel pretty confident that nobody is standing at the location looking at the screen, this is still a perfect check. Second, you can literally copy a file on the remote computer, switch to a local window and paste and the file copies over the internet. Obviously programs have offered FTP like interfaces for copying files, but removing all of the overhead by making it look like a standard copy paste is brilliant.

What is the catch? Well, it only works if the remote computer is a Windows PC, no love for Macs at this point. Second, it only works when the browser used to connect is Internet Explorer (because it uses ActiveX to do the magic). So basically, it only works from a Windows machine to a Windows machine. However, it works between versions of Windows. So my XP machine can connect to a Vista and vice-versa. Although I would love to bring my MacMini back into this party, there is still enough to like that I use it despite that restriction.

So in closing, I tend to be reluctant to give Microsoft much praise, but here is a place where they are doing great work. Now we just have to get the word out, because New York Times recommending people use programs with heavy configuration needed instead is creating work.

iPhone != i + Phone

I thought iPhone hit critical mass when my Sensei bought one (he is a car head, not a tech head), but his impresion so far is "It's OK".

But then he said "I heard the new one is coming out soon". He wants to buy that one and give this one to his youngest instructor.

So maybe the iPhone has hit a type of critical mass where the experience itself is irrelevant.

Voting by transaction

This thought process started as a desire to vote on elections from my computer. This was not the first time I had wondered why electronic voting means having a machine at the polling center. Then I thought about the fact that we are comfortable banking online. What is so fundamentally different about banking online that makes this process more accountable? I pondered for a while the possibility of having regional servers and email confirmations to voters as a way to remove systematic gaps in trust, but then I returned to the model of money.

The reason why we feel comfortable banking or shopping online is because there is a natural duality to a transaction. I will complain if my account balance is too low, the other party will complain if their balance is too low. This assumes that money cannot be created or destroyed, only exchanged, which is tied to our understanding of physical currency and our mental abstraction of the real bills. In truth much of our economic resources exist solely as entries in a database, but we trust the system enough and the system has proven itself to be suitably monitored.

So if we base a hypothetical voting system on our existing monetary system, then we have to create some mirror of transactions. Essentially we have to bank our votes, and then transmit them directly to the candidate, who then presents his votes and the candidate with the highest totals will be awarded victory in the election.

So how do you receive votes in your voting bank? Unlike our economic system where you have to exchange your labor for currency, in the current system you are rewarded with votes for being a citizen, so I will propose that all citizens receive there votes before the election. During the election timespan, voters transmit there votes to the candidate they select, just like you can give money to support a candidate now. The bank makes sure that they subtract dollars from your bank account when they process your check. The candidates staff will complain if the bank fails to increase their account balance by the appropriate amount. This system works extremely well for transmitting resources.

As soon as I had created this system in my head I began thinking about the problem of differentiating a vote by each election. This combined with a seperate idea: would it be appropriate to exchange vote types. Let's say that one voter feels very strongly about a presidential candidate but has little knowledge about the senatorial election. Another voter in the same region feels very strongly about the senatorial candidate but is ambivalent about the presidential race. Could these two essentially swap their unwanted resources to increase their influence in their positions of passion? Of course I managed to blow my own assumptions apart when I looked back at my old friend the dollar. You don't have to exchange your food dollars for entertainment dollars to buy a movie ticket; there is just one type of currency. What if votes utilized the same type of flexibility. This would allow voters to spread there votes based on priority. Obviously this is a radical departure from our current voting system of one vote per person per election race, but it is an extremely common model in our economic lives.

Let's say that we take a step back technology-wise in order to pave the right future. What if the US Treasury department actually printed votes. They could be distributed to registered voters once per year and "spent" at polling centers on election day, where members of the candidates staff would greet voters and collect vote certificates from voters. Then the candidates turn in their votes, the votes get checked for counterfeits (something we cannot do so frequently with economic currency), and the winner is declared.

Pretty quickly vote banking institutions are going to be created to store your votes and get rid of the necessity to physically travel to the polling station. These may be extentions of existing banks or entirely new operations. The distribution of votes can be done by sending a "check" that you deposit and that process will go move to internet transfer incredibly quickly, like a direct deposit. Next you send a "check" to your candidates address to vote for them. This process will also go online without a lot of delay, but I think to transfer the process we would need to go through the intermediate step of having a physical vote currency so that the abstraction can have meaning for people that are seeing this for the first time. Once it becomes "normal" younger generations will simply accept the conventions as they do with the economic system they inherit.

A few questions arise out of this discussion. Firstly, where is the benefit for the vote banks, for industries do not rise out of complete altruism. Banks hold your money because they can make money with it through interest based loans. Vote banks could either charge a small monetary fee, or even a small vote fee. The first is easy to understand, a fee-based service is straight-forward. The second is a bit harder to wrap our heads around since we haven't spent our lives thinking about votes as a type of currency, but I can see an organization building around the idea of exchanging a service for political capital. My best guess is that some of each would arise and time would shake out what is the best situation for the market as a whole.

The second question that arises is related to the first because it also stems from the comparison to currency. If a voter feels uninspired by candidates in a particular year, can they save their votes? Furthermore, could they loan out their votes. Perhaps someone is willing to pay 1.03 votes next year for a vote this year, when their favorite candidate is fighting a tough opponent. How would this change the political landscape. It would certainly shake things up, although for better or worse I cannot say.

Out of all of this brainstorming a semi-coherant idea has emerged and as I look at it one thing strikes me: this could potentially be the answer to the negative campaign focus. After all, if a person is not required to vote for either you or your opponent, how does slinging mud at them really help you get people to send you votes? Think of advertising for companies that want your economic votes, they tend to focus on creating a positive brand image of themselves though they might occassionally toss in a negative comparison of the other guy. Maybe that is naivete, but I posulate that this may create an about-face in campaign strategy. Time would tell!