Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 May 3

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 3

what is he wearing

what type of clothes specifically is the guy on the left wearing in this picture: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81-IA3LTgLL._AC_SX466_.jpg 66.27.122.181 (talk) 02:59, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Looks like a robe. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:52, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

It is an illustration by Gustave Doré to Canto XIX of the section Inferno of Dante's Divine Comedy. The two figures shown are Virgil and Dante, each crowned by a laurel wreath. Dante is bent over, engaged in a conversation with a pair of feet generally thought to belong to Pope Nicholas III. Presumably, Doré depicted Virgil wearing what the artist imagined a Roman toga looked like, just like Dante wears the Florentine garb (but without the girding cord, having relinquished it to his guide three cantos before).  --Lambiam 07:46, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

From its colour the toga is perhaps intended to be the variety known as a trabea which, if he really was of equestrian rank as is supposed, Virgil would have likely worn in actuality (and thus in Hell), though we can't really know how much Doré knew about the minutiae of 1st-century BCE Roman dress. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.135.95 (talk) 16:28, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

And it is probably the adequate clothing for hell, see rear view. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 07:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Little, big technical question, thanks

Hi, by now I have acquired a good culture of punch card voting systems, the result of my research and my great curiosity. But one more thing I couldn't understand: it's true, when these systems were invented the results were printed, before the advent of computers. And here's my question; the same computers, which were then connected to the tabulating machines, when they were actually invented and entered into force in the elections in the USA? Thank you very much.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.41.100.198 (talk • contribs)

This website has a wide number of historical and current voting machines. The earliest punched card computing devices were unit record devices, a type of analog computer, invented by Herman Hollerith that he called the Tabulating machine; they were invented in the late 1880s and were used for 50+years. IBM, which was a conglomerate built out of Hollerith's company among others, built most of its early business on making these machines. I would not be surprised if the first punched card voting machines were based on Hollerith cards. --Jayron32 13:28, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I think the equipment was digital; even, in a sense, binary: at each relevant position on a card there either was a hole (think "1"), or there wasn't (think "0") – apart from hanging chads.  --Lambiam 19:56, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

You're correct; the terminology difference I was really getting at is mechanical vs. electronic, I used the wrong words. The computers in question were mechanical (or, perhaps, electromechanical) where the tabulations where done via turning geared wheels. --Jayron32 12:23, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The machines are the machines, which previously printed the results. The question is the following: when the computers took over where on the monitors, could the results be read, in fact supplanting the paper? By computers, I mean the ones like in Florida in 2000.

It is not exactly known when the computers took over and became our new Overlords, but it was well before 2000. See also the (very incomplete) section Electronic voting in the United States § Timeline of development. Purely techn(ocrat)ically speaking, since a long time there has been no essential need anymore to cut up trees for making paper that can then be soiled with ink blots; we could read all information from screens. But for pragmatic and psychological reasons, humans prefer to hang on to more material records than magnetic fluctuations in some mysterious and potentially hackable memory device.  --Lambiam 06:05, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

There's a redundancy in a "paper trail" that is, while labor intensive, at least somewhat reliably hard to hack efficiently. It's trivial to create a routine that can go in an change an entire batch of votes individually in a purely electronic way; that would leave no trace, and would be difficult to detect. --Jayron32 11:19, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Forward this link: is it possible that there were monitors already in 1974? There are also unfortunately grainy images especially on the 37th page but you can't see anything. But can it be feasible? From the image it seems. Thanks again. https://www.ifes.org/sites/default/files/ce02504_0.pdf

Definitely. The IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit was announced with System/360 in 1964; in the 1970s more and cheaper models were available. See also the (cheaper, text-only) IBM 2260.  --Lambiam 08:18, 10 May 2021 (UTC)