squiggleblaz

98 ms·

871.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Windows lost that crown years ago. Nowadays many people are using Macs. And most are using Android or iOS for a lot of the same things we used to use Windows for. Anyway, the last sentence is irrelevant. I honestly don't mind whether y
872.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
It's definitely the case that, in Australia, when automatic registration was introduced it was introduced and supported by the left-of-centre parties who pundits suppose would benefit from having extra voters on the roll, and weakly op
873.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
I'm not in America but I've had to vote in many elections. I don't think I ever presented any ID ever, they just took my word that I'm the one who I said I was. (I think there was once a state election when they posted m
874.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
It could be illegal for them to use that. Perhaps the party does the redistricting which an assembly member introduces into the legislature. To use the database, it would either need to be publicly available or else the executive would have
875.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Yeah, iPhone's notification system is terrible. Based around "deal with it now because we told you to!". Makes me sad.
876.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
I dunno, I'm just trying to play with the rules that exist. There's a dubious federal law designed to ensure minority representation which seems to prohibit proportional representation, but seeing as it so abjectly fails to achiev
877.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
You don't eliminate gerrymandering in that way. You limit it. STV works best in limited magnitude districts (three or five seems to be preferred) or else the number of options becomes too difficult for humans to express a coherent usef
878.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Congratulations, you've just devised the single transferable vote used in Ireland, Malta and Australia. Assuming that "the procedure to whittle down the number of candidates" is "exclude the worst-performing candidate a
879.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
I think the concern is that you could still, in principle, draw districts that gave you lots of seats, because they're relatively small. STV isn't proportional by design. You want as many of their votes as possible to wind up in t
880.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
But if this process is as you describe, won't the moderate voters eventually start electing independent candidates?
881.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Apparently largest assembly sizes are normally fall somewhere around the cube root of the population. Obviously you don't want so many electorates that the house becomes unmanageable, nor so few the voters can't make an effective
882.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Actually, under Open List PR, you could still have de facto local representatives. Someone could focus their attention on the needs of the Mojave Desert dwellers and get elected or not based on their popularity in the desert. PR doesn'
883.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
You can hardly do MMP in America. Several states have only one or two seats, where MMP would be equivalent to FPTP or block vote - a significant step back.
884.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
American parties aren't exactly permanent tho are they? How many bills have fallen this year because some republican senator wouldn't support it? And I certainly wouldn't describe Trump's Republican administration as pur
885.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Duverger's law isn't the whole picture. Normal FPTP assemblies the size of America's have third parties (see Canada, UK, India). Some PR countries have strong two party systems (see most obviously Malta). There is something a
886.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
But there isn't a fine line between charging into someone with a lethal force so you can get home a little quicker, and letting them live. Cars driven by humans redesigned our cities. Cars driven by computers will probably redesign the
887.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
I surely hope that we will be much less forgiving of machines beating our children to death because they had the temerity to play in front of their own house, then when adults beat children to death because they had the temerity to play in
888.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Children are absolutely large enough to be noticed. The issue is that car drivers think it's okay to ignore them. They're choosing only to look at cars because we train people from a young age to think of the black stuff as a spac
889.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Bloodletting has been an important and scientifically verified part of my father and aunt's medical treatment due to an excess absorption of iron (haemochromotosis). Also some people find leaches useful for cleaning wounds. Common know
890.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
Actually I don't think he was successfully making that agnostic point. It's more like: don't gold plate it, and don't use abstractions that you learnt later. Not gold plating things seems obvious. I think there's a
891.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
I dunno, I find the second one harder. Because now you have to know about array indices and things like that. The for loop forces you to deal with petty details. The map reduce lets someone else deal with that. I tend to think there's
892.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
I don't think I've come across term-rewriting before. There's an example in their wiki page for inserting into a BST: > nonfix nil; > insert nil y = bin y nil nil; > insert (bin x L R) y = bin x (inse
893.
by squiggleblaz 9y ago
I think the argument runs something like this: P1. Infra A exists. P2. Infra A has been abused. C1. If we build infra A, it can be abused. P3. Abuse is bad. P4. This proposal proposes that we build infra A. P5. A proposal to build something