discardorama

87 ms·

841.
by discardorama 13y ago
We saw this in action at the last Oakland Mayor's election. Now, if we can just set aside the qualities of Jean Quan (the mayor elected), it was interesting to see that the person who got the most first-place votes actually did not win
842.
by discardorama 13y ago
I think the GP forgot to put "willingly" in there. The Brits, after WW2, were exhausted. India had been clamoring for independence for ~50 years. And after the war, you suddenly had a million young men in India, well trained in ar
843.
by discardorama 13y ago
How is this any different from an iterator in Java? IIRC, if you have the iterator of a Collection and add elements to it during iteration, the results are undefined. You can, however, safely remove elements even while iterating.
844.
by discardorama 13y ago
While I agree mostly with you about direct democracy, there's a catch: direct democracy needs an informed electorate. But then, if the electorate is informed, it won't vote for the current crop of representatives anyways. I guess
845.
by discardorama 13y ago
When each of us can convince our friends and relatives to vote neither "(R)" nor "(D)".
846.
by discardorama 13y ago
My senator is Feinstein. She probably lights cigars with the complaints of Gitmo detainees.
847.
by discardorama 13y ago
Ms. Merkel can always give Snowden permanent asylum. Or, for that matter, any of the EU countries who are so upset about all this spying. What's stopping them? Put your money where your mouth is: if you think Snowden's revelations
848.
by discardorama 13y ago
I used to be bad at names. Now I've become somewhat better. What's helped is: when I hear their name, I say it back to them: once loud (as in, "Hi John! Nice to meet you."), and several times after that in my mind (&quot
849.
by discardorama 13y ago
> Those of us that ride BART daily .... and then > I hated people like you when I commuted daily on BART. Which is it? Do you take the BART daily or not?
850.
by discardorama 13y ago
> Additionally, you do not "have to pay" for the experience, you choose to do so. Actually, we _all_ have to pay, even if don't ride BART. There's a 0.5% sales tax addon to fund BART in the Bay Area. Next time, check
851.
by discardorama 13y ago
> Basically, I want to know if BART employees are being overpaid for what they do. Correction: this BART strike (threat...) is from the "train operators" union. Consider the fact that BART trains are (almost) fully automated. T
852.
by discardorama 13y ago
The Iranians are much better at distinguishing between the "government" and the "people"; they expect the same in return.
853.
by discardorama 13y ago
You mean, like George W Bush? Or O'Bomber?
854.
by discardorama 13y ago
>> there are large parts of the country [Iran] that are dangerous for outsiders. Are you kidding me? Have you seen the Rick Steve's special on Iran? I'm bringing RS up because anecdotal evidence wouldn't fly much around
855.
by discardorama 13y ago
"Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Who's putting up a wall now? It's funny that when it came to USSR and China, we believed that people-to-people contact would improve relations. Why doe
856.
by discardorama 13y ago
The Americas started rising in the 1600s. That would preclude them as a factor in the Silk Road's decline.
857.
by discardorama 13y ago
I'm tired of this example. AFAIR, Yahoo got a valid court order to turn over information, and they complied because they had a presence there. No other company: not Google, not Microsoft, not AOL would have done anything different.
858.
by discardorama 13y ago
In San Francisco, people have been trying to get stats on how many times the fire trucks are sent on medical emergencies ("unresponsive man on the sidewalk"). The SFFD has resisted all attempts at such inquiry. I often see big fi
859.
by discardorama 13y ago
I agree; it's basically a physics problem (calories_in < calories_out to lose weight), with the body's metabolism being a second-order effect. I went on vacation recently, walked around all day taking photos and visiting museum
860.
by discardorama 13y ago
I am in Vegas right now, and I can tell you: most nerds I know would die in this heat. Turn your oven on and stick your head into it: that's what it feels like. I remember when I first visited San Francisco: I felt like it was home. Ri
861.
by discardorama 13y ago
In general, I think mail delivery is very reliable. But given the volume, there will be outliers. Even if we assumed 99.9999% reliability (a hypothetical number), given that they sort 300MM pieces per day, 300 pieces per day will be affecte
862.
by discardorama 13y ago
(Using a throwaway account) I worked on the OCR systems. Fun fact: at one time, the USPS was the world's biggest user of Linux in a production setting. Their OCR boxes ran on Linux (until they were replace with SGI O2 boxes at a massiv