Ted Sowinski's home page

Welcome to my home page! I have three main interests:
  1. Computing: the Internet (keep it free!), web programming (Perl/CGI), peer-to-peer (p2p) or distributed computing (a good example is LimeWire), the open source movement, the Viewable With Any Browser campaign, and consulting. My prefered OS is Linux; windoze is for lusers. Linux is simply a superior product -- and a programmer's paradise.
  2. Handmade pottery. I have been making stoneware and porcelain on and off since the '70s.
  3. Politics, democracy, and election reform. I was involved with The Greens until it became clear how urgent it is to remove George Bush from office. Now my wife and I write letters to the editor and support organizations that are working to defeat him. Also, ever since the 2000 election I have been working to make elections more fair and to give voters more choices. I created IRV-Vote, an open source project (see below) that allows webmasters to put Instant Runoff polls on their web sites. I am also working with the Midwest Democracy Center to promote IRV.
Fran's Art Gallery

Free software! Here are some Perl/CGI scripts I developed for my own use that you can download and use on your own site. (They are also available on freshmeat.)

Other voting systems: Condorcet and Borda Count.
Condorcet and Borda Count are other methods for tallying ranked ballot, in fact they can be used to count the same ballots used for IRV. For more information, see Condorcet Voting Explained and Borda count from Wikipedia. There is disagreement about which method is best for counting ranked ballots. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem shows that no voting system is perfect; each one has some bias, favoring, for example, the most broad appeal, or the most core supporters. Each voting system also has some flaw, such as permitting "strategic voting" or allowing lower choices to defeat higher choices. Rather than try to resolve this question, I've developed Perl/CGI scripts that tally the IRV demo ballots above using both the Condorcet and Borda Count methods -- so you can compare the results and judge for yourself!

Some other dynamic web stuff - Java applets and Perl/CGI scripts:

Favorite Links.

My personal address book (password required)
Progressive Film List (password required)
Midwest Democracy Center Contact List (password required)

Last modified: Thu Jan 1 21:57:47 2009 - Access count: 21140 - Last access: Sat Sep 4 00:59:19 2010