Turpentine Mouthwash

I've been reading a lot about bitcoin. To those of you not in the know, bitcoin is an online currency that allows robust, non-returnable transactions without a central issuing authority. Transactions are broadcast throughout the network as a way to prevent double spending, and it's almost impossible to crash the network. Read more about it here . Why not use this same architecture for voting? Every online voting scheme out there now depends on proprietary hardware and software, black boxes the people can't see into, nor inspect for flaws. This makes it impossible to trust the veracity of votes moving through the system. But if you base it on an open source framework with widely trusted security, then we can take it apart and see how it works. More importantly WeVote (my clever little pastiche) takes away the vote counters, keeps the polls open and fair at any time, and allows for the start of a direct, local democracy movement.

One of my pet projects is a boardgame. Well, it's a boardgame in the sense that you play it at a table with a bunch of friends, not in the sense that there's an actual board that you move little doo-dads about on.  Ars Gladiatorum started because I watched three seasons of Spartacus in a two day span and said 'yes, I would do that in a New York Minute'. I have a propensity for making stupid decisions when I'm ODing on action serials. One time, after watching Saving Private Ryan, I ended up in the Army. True story. Age bringing wisdom (or at least bad knees) and sans time machine, I opted for the next best thing: a simulation of running a gladiator academy and arena combat. Shamelessly pilfering the best bits of a dozen different games and hot gluing them together, I have ended up with a robust combat system where death is an ever present threat, welded to a fighter management system where you decide how much a risk you want to take with your stable.  The base ...