What would YOU suggest for exhibits in the Irish Museum of White Elephants?

tom23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121727688#Comment_121727688

They were marginally better. Marginally. But they were bulshitters... especially Gilmore. Id be Happy to assign them to the dustbin.

Tow

Telecom Eireann's Minitel System.

They spent a fortune on a system that no one used. I believe in the end the mainframe they bought to host Minitel got some use for Eircell billing.

Tow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121726343#Comment_121726343

I don't think much tax payers money was spent that, but I am sure they looks for any grants going.

Does anyone remember eBid? A sort of orish version of eBay with lots of money backing it.

artanevilla

Every GAA ground.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121727899#Comment_121727899

Vaguely remember Ebid. Was even more expensive to use than eBay I think?

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121727663#Comment_121727663

Here's a live one lads 😀

kowloonkev

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121727962#Comment_121727962

If you understand the term white elephant you'll understand the humour

MrMusician18

I think a lot of people don't really understand what white elephant means something that's much more expensive than it's usefulness. The new children's hospital is very expensive, but there's no suggestion that it won't be used when it's finished.

The country is littered with white elephant projects. Things that were pushed for at the time, funding and fundraising obtained but when the team behind it moved on or got bored they were left to rot. Lots of memorial gardens fall into this description.

E voting machines are another. Remote working hubs I think were another failed idea - but that's only because they were far too expensive to use.

whisky_galore

A replica of Achillhenge.

Kintarō Hattori

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121725145#Comment_121725145

I had come in specifically to say that :)

Sid 1984

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121725844#Comment_121725844

Greenore Port?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121725893#Comment_121725893

It wasn't journalists that got worried. It was the IT folks who got worried when this pile of dog crap was exposed. Maybe you can explain to us how you can be sure that the vote you cast is the vote counted?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121727040#Comment_121727040

Who would get the printout of the vote and how would the printout be used?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728227#Comment_121728227

Bremore I assume. PDs wanted to move Dublin Port there in the boom, now Johnny Ronan does. Won't happen.

Not much if any public money was spent on that though.

Sleepy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728302#Comment_121728302

A company I've worked for and would trust to be correct on such matters did a security review of the software code that the e-voting machines used to count votes. The system was sound, it was scaremongering that put an end to the e-voting... The best summary I heard of the whole thing was my Dad's response to a friend's "Oh but they're saying a magnet could wipe the machines easily..." when he replied "sure I could do the same with the current system with a match".

Sleepy

My own vote: The Ana Livia Statue

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728332#Comment_121728332

How do you know that the software your buddies reviewed is the software that runs on election day?

Which company did the review btw?

Sleepy

That's a fair argument but I'd suggest it comes down to the same way we "know" that the vote counters put votes in the correct pile when counting them: a degree of trust.

Though technically speaking it wouldn't have been overly difficult to produce a software validation program that could have been used to check each terminal at the start and end of the voting window.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728393#Comment_121728393

Vote counters do their counting at desks in view of the political observers, who scrutinise every step of the operation.

Before counting actually starts, the observers will have tallied every vote, so any result out of line with the tallies can be recounted.

How do you know that your software validation program is doing what you expect it to do?

Sleepy

The votes have to be moved from polling stations to the count centres before they can be counted. In our current system we're trusting that the crew driving the votes from polling centres to the count centre haven't been bought off or otherwise compelled to interfere with the ballot boxes. There's a weak link in every system and in almost every system, it's the human element that comprises that link.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728302#Comment_121728302

It is better than having disputes about how many paper votes belong to each candidate. Recounts are common, and they often get a different result each time. The machine returns one result in one go. I read that one recount in a European election seat in Ireland, cost an extra €1 million. IT folks can have their view, but anyone who describes something they know nothing about as dog crap is being unfair.

"And Dublin South-Central in 1992 saw the “Ben and Eric Show” – when Fianna Fáil’s Ben Briscoe and Democratic Left’s Eric Byrne sat through what is believed to be the longest recount in Irish history.

After 13 counts, Byrne won the seat by 10 votes, but after 10 days of recounts, the result was overturned, leading the victorious Briscoe to famously describe the experience as “The Agony and the Ex-TD.”

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728461#Comment_121728461

The ballot boxes are sealed at the polling station, in view of observers and the same seals are opened in view of observers at the count centre. Any attacker would need to know the exact number of votes in the box, and the paper punch patterns used at each desk in that polling station, and arrange to replicate these within the half hour trip to the polling station, under Garda escort.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728560#Comment_121728560

Why would you think that I know nothing about this system? I knew an awful lot about this system at the time that the weaknesses were being exposed. Memory is a bit shaky now, but there were good reasons why very conservative organisations like the Irish Computer Society came out and said that this system was not safe. This was a pile of dog crap. The central database was built on MS Access, a home database from Microsoft, not designed or intended for corporate use. The software was written using traditional coding methods, which inherently will have software bugs. There was no way to validate that the software as tested was the actual software running on these machines on the day. There was no way to ensure that the file output from the voting machine was the file input to the count machine. 

The entire basis of our democracy was left in the hands of a few software techs. 

You're basically saying that you'd prefer a quick wrong answer rather than take the time to get this right. Your €1m count cost pales in insignificance compared to the money spent on the machine AND on the additional staff member that was required to sit beside each machine and enable it for each voter.

It's hilarious that you have to go back to 1992, over thirty years ago, to find a big problem

dxhound2005

Contain your hilarity. Recounts happen on multiple occasions in every election. And the people who lost out because they did not trust what the paper count produced, will never be convinced that their seats were not stolen from them.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728666#Comment_121728666

Who are these people convinced that their seats were stolen? Can you identify or quote them please?

Did they have their observers overseeing every stage of the count?

Yes, there are recounts at every election. Most results are out on day 1. In complex counts and seats, some results will be out on day 2. A tiny number of seats go into day 3 or beyond.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728768#Comment_121728768

Why does there have to be observers? There can be only one correct result, whether someone counting is being watched or not.

Maybe you can explain to us how you can be sure that the vote you cast is the vote counted?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728807#Comment_121728807

Because observers bring oversight and scrutiny. That's what stops box stuffing or other forms of attack.

I can be sure that the vote I cast is the vote counted because of the scrutiny applied every step of the way.

More importantly, what problem does an eVoting system solve?

Fr Tod Umptious

That Chinese market place that someone wanted to build in the midlands.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/beijingle-mall-has-certain-ring-to-it/26850976.html

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121724733#Comment_121724733

It cost €4 million in 2002, a lot of money at the time. The "pin in the bin" "nail in the Pale" " stiletto in the ghetto" just looks like a junkies needle, so very suited to O'Connell st.

dxhound2005

In what you call "complex counts", it would do away with the paper returning different results, each time it is counted. The paper system seems to be open to much manipulation by bad actors. Box stuffing would not exist in the language, if there was no box stuffing.

tom1ie

Metro north

The DRRTS (Dublin Rail Rapid Transit Study)

basically anything that involved under grounding rail in Ireland.

yagan

For the me the biggest elephant in the room from a cost versus result is compulsory Irish in education.

More frustrating is that I'm hearing the same arguments and resistance to change now as I heard 40 years ago.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121729098#Comment_121729098

The different results on different counts are down to the random selection rules, nothing to do with paper vs electronic.

If we wanted to change that with the current paper system, we could. But there's no demand for change from those who take part in the system and see the results.

Box stuffing is a known tactic, and still happens in some countries. The existence of the term tells you nothing about the Irish electoral system.

How can the current paper system be manipulated?

tobefrank321

Supervalu Pairc Ui Chaoimh!

dxhound2005

It can be manipulated by random selection rules.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121729610#Comment_121729610

How can someone manipulate random selection?

There are specific rules in legislation, and the selecting is done in view of observers, with the right to request a recount.

Is this a real issue?

yagan

Sounds like the voting thing is it's own thread.

dxhound2005

I just glanced at an 11 page PDF document called: A Guide to Ireland’s PR-STV Voting System.

Not one single reference to the word random in there. There are specific rules, but it seems that no matter how specific they are, they give different numbers each time the paper is counted.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121729782#Comment_121729782

The OP suggested two White Elephants, one of which was e-voting. It is OK if people just want to add things to the list, but also OK if people want to challenge or defend their inclusion.

Ten of Swords

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121725145#Comment_121725145

The gift that keeps giving, 20 years later and not a single brick laid

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121729857#Comment_121729857

Yes, and the problem is?

Have you met a single candidate who has a problem with the current rules?

Honestly, if this is the first time that you've looked at this document, you're not in a great position to be telling the world about the problems of our electoral system.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121729782#Comment_121729782

There have been many such threads, but no matter how often it has been covered, there's always one genius, generally one who knows little about the electoral system and less about the Irish eVoting debacle, who decides that we need to spend huge money to fix a non existent problem.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121728153#Comment_121728153

They are still pushing & advertising remote working hubs.

Whilst Minitel used technology predating WWW, it presented a useful framework for how a world web could work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121725269#Comment_121725269

Why does it look like a vag?

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121730251#Comment_121730251

The problem is that a system is available which would make the vote counting entirely accurate. Instead of getting a different answer whenever the results are recounted. Both are subject to control by humans, and nobody has proved that the e-voting system was the victim of any corruption. It certainly does not need to be protected from vote stuffing.

If this was an everyday thing, like spending money, or researching information, people would demand the latest electronic technology. But for something they do maybe once every two years, there is no demand for change. A shame that people are happy to settle for an inferior technology. I expect e-voting will have its day in the future.

Tow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121730320#Comment_121730320

It was introduced in Ireland in 1988, we already had privately run BBSes by then.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121730581#Comment_121730581

Entire accurate, except for not being able to count the votes that Access/Jet just didn't record or lost along the way cause its a consumer grade product from the early 90s and was already obsolete.

Access/Jet starts to get very odd above a few thousand records in a table.

Any product using Jet should have been disqualified from the tender, but instead they were awarded it.

Tow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121730396#Comment_121730396

It is called an architects orgasm. They could have used industrial warehouse style boxes and kitted out the insides nicely. It would have cost a good bit less to build. Moving it to a larger greenfield site would have also have saved a fortune. A relation of mine offering the Government a site to build the hospital for free. They had no interest in it, as the site was on the Northside outside the M50.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121730758#Comment_121730758

The Mater site was larger (even before the proposal to take the imminently redundant at the time Mater A&E site in), had better access and was ready to build once they adjusted the planning permission - but it was further from the consultants private clinics and golf courses; so the entire thing was moved to a worse site guaranteed to be more expensive to build on, all to stop them whining in the Irish Times.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121730726#Comment_121730726

Ah but it was developed in Brittany rather earlier, space age for the time there. The world found a better way of being connected, thanks to Berners-Lee & others.

When I was 14, I remember being out and about exploring the coast of north county Dublin, and I had missed one of the rare enough buses. Sort of would have liked to phone my mother and tell her I’d be much later home, but couldn’t be @rsed finding a call box. I thought to myself if I could have a phone to carry about with me, would be great. Then thought about how it would work if we all could carry around phones. I thought the e tire landscape would need to be littered with radio masts.