Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2019 August 18

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August 18

Follow-up on Voyager 1 and aluminum foil

Given this previous Reference desk discussion, would it be useful to add a statement (along with references) like the following to the Voyager 1 article (possibly in the "Spacecraft components" subsection)?

Shortly before launch, strips of kitchen-grade aluminum foil were applied to certain cabling on Voyager 1 in order to provide shielding against Jupiter's radiation.

--Elegie (talk) 07:15, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Now added to the Voyager_1#History section which also discusses radiation protection. Let's see if it survives the attentions of the technocrats. Alansplodge (talk) 11:46, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Nope; User:JustinTime55 deleted it as "vandalism". Alansplodge (talk) 16:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't intend to remove that; the only vandalism was removal of an Age in years template. I've restored it. JustinTime55 (talk) 17:12, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you kindly. Alansplodge (talk) 21:33, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Last request (probably) on Votomatic computers

Good morning. I've been writing about punch cards for quite a while now, but this is probably the last time. It would be the best if a person could answer me directly who in the past found himself performing the role of election worker, but for my part there is no claim. I come to the point: once you count the ballots in the machines, how were the results classified in the computer? I mean: I imagine the names of the candidates appeared on the screen; Republicans, Democrats, etc. and if the precicnt and the number of votes with relative percentage appeared? I repeat, weren't those compters small, but not very large, as they were planned in general? I would be very happy if someone could help me, because it is one of my curiosities, albeit foolish but I still haven't managed to get out of it. Thank you very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.41.100.198 (talk) 13:02, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

While waiting for a former election worker to answer (it may be a long wait as the pool of active editors here is rather small and we're not all Americans), have a look at Vote: The machinery of democracy - Design for Democracy from the Smithsonian Institute (at the bottom of the page):

"In Chicago, ballots may be counted as many as four times, and in as many ways. At the conclusion of the day's balloting, an election official opens the top of the counter and raises an antenna to transmit the tally to a central location. Second, the machine prints a tally on paper tape not unlike a cash register receipt. Third, the transmitted tally and the tape tally may be checked against the machine's memory cartridge. Last, the ballots can be counted by hand".

In the 1970s, computer data output was most commonly printed onto "music ruled" continuous form paper, but I have no knowledge of US election results I'm afraid. Alansplodge (talk) 14:52, 18 August 2019 (UTC)