🔗 Quick links thread
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@Zecc I am trying desperately to resist the urge to link to ED.
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@Jaloopa said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
@bugmenot said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
ED.
Erectile dysfunction?
Emancipated Discourse?
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@Jaloopa Encyclopaedia Dramatica. Being a site all about Internet drama, they've got boatloads of information about how TV Tropes is a horrible place run by horrible people to appeal to the neuroses of even more horrible people. (That's only barely an exaggeration.)
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@bugmenot said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
is a horrible place run by horrible people to appeal to the neuroses of even more horrible people
Sounds familiar...
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@bugmenot said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
TV Tropes is a horrible place run by horrible people to appeal to the neuroses of even more horrible people.
Sounds like our kind of place. </obligatory>
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@loopback0 If you were thinking "almost any community on the Internet today," then you are correct.
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Oriville dam spillway history in pictures:
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@boomzilla
Shiiiiit Sheeeeeeeeeit Shieet Sheeeit - Senator Clay Davis, The Wire – 00:09
— SugeKnight187
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"Hi, Kickstarter... Sheeeeeeeee-it!" – 01:55
— The Whitlock Academy
This can't be real, surely?Well…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1556507886/isiah-whitlock-jr-talking-bobblehead
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@boomzilla said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
Oriville dam spillway history in pictures:
Single like insufficient!
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@dkf
Visisting that imgur gallery killed my browser though, seems autoplaying videos aren't healthy.
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@JBert said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
Visisting that imgur gallery killed my browser though, seems autoplaying videos aren't healthy.
You're not another Firefox 22 user?
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@RaceProUK Dumb Things Being Crowdfunded thread is
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This is pretty cool! Log in Windows in Cinnamon!
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@dse
Interesting!...
...
This is my second serious C++ project ever, and first with the Win32 API. Good luck.
Ehr... You first.
I insist.
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I should try it, even if it is dumb!
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@sloosecannon said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
@dse said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
This is pretty cool! Log in Windows in Cinnamon!
And to think that most GINA replacements were to just simply bypass logging altogether... ;)
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I really like gopher, okay
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Let's hear it for the unsung heroes:
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Before:
https://i.imgur.com/oZ7aG8x.jpgAfter:
https://i.imgur.com/yqPpUT6.jpgIf that's with him not satisfied, I can't wait to see how good it'll be when he is satisfied! :D
Also, he's earned a or five
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@RaceProUK
I do sort of agree with the comments that are "downboating" him for using zip ties instead of velcro straps.
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@RaceProUK All fine and dandy, but the bastard used zip ties.
I hate comms racks full of zip ties.
If any of you ever get a big cable re-org to do, please please please use velcro strips instead.
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Trojan.Ransom.Rensenware – 05:49
— danooct1Ransomware makes you play Touhou in the hardest level to get your data back :--) Now that is a game I want to see @blakeyrat play.
Ready player one? PLAY FOR YOUR LIFE (or porn stash, whatever)
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@dse I'm pretty sure we already had that in the Today's News thread, or maybe the Evil Ideas thread. We had it somewhere, anyway.
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Apparently, commuters and New Yorkers think taser guns sound like actual guns.
I happened to be on a bus passing by wondering why TF crowds of people are running. I was playing Pokemon so naturally, I thought they were running for a a 100% IV Snorlax.
ETA: @Polygeekery I'm sure you'd find this interesting and I'm sure you will tell us what idiots those are that thought it sounded like a regular gun.
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@Karla
Perfect IV Snorlax is definitely much more valuable than not getting caught by stray bullets.
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@izzion said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
@Karla
Perfect IV Snorlax is definitely much more valuable than not getting caught by stray bullets.Generally, one doesn't have to choose. It hasn't been my experience that there is many stray bullets flying around most perfect Snorlaxes. To be fair, my experiences with perfect Snorlaxes in the wild is exactly 0.
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Seems the UK has, in general, improved more than the US. Then again, the US in some ways started better in the first place, so it all evens out.
What I don't get though, is the Index of Democracy. Yes, both countries are democratic insofar as they have elections and stuff, but the systems in use are inherently unfair, and tend to focus power to a small political elite. Hardly what I'd call '10'.
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@boomzilla said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
I find the "level of democracy" to be dubious. I know it's sourced from HumanProgress, but with the known issues in the US of a two-party system with known corruption in local and federal levels that often go unpunished, can we really say it's a solid 10? I mean, sure, we're not as bad Venezuela, but I'd probably rank us an 8 or 9, which isn't too shabby, but shows that we have some improvement to make.
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@RaceProUK said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
Hardly what I'd call '10'.
As an example, this is from the 2015 General Election:
That's right: 37% of the vote, 51% of seats in Parliament. And that's somehow the maximum score on the democracy index.
Bull.
Shit.
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@The_Quiet_One That figure has to be subjective and I can't find anything describing the methodology. Certainly given the growth and scope of the executive bureaucracy, etc, in the US I wouldn't have rated it a 10.
This is the best description I've found:
Our data on democracy versus autocracy over time codes democratic and autocratic "patterns of authority." It measures key qualities of executive recruitment, constraints on executive authority and political competition. It also records changes in the institutionalized qualities of governing authority. Country scores can be converted into three regime categories: autocracies (-10 to -6), anocracies or partial democracies (-5 to +5) and democracies (+6 to +10). Today, the average country scores a "4" and is considered a partial-democracy.
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@RaceProUK said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
That's right: 37% of the vote, 51% of seats in Parliament. And that's somehow the maximum score on the democracy index.
Bull.
Shit.If getting 100% voting participation is a requirement then I wouldn't want to be rated 10.
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@boomzilla That's 37% of votes cast
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@boomzilla said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
@RaceProUK said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
That's right: 37% of the vote, 51% of seats in Parliament. And that's somehow the maximum score on the democracy index.
Bull.
Shit.If getting 100% voting participation is a requirement then I wouldn't want to be rated 10.
If you're talking about voter turnout, it was 66.4% in that election. It should be higher, but getting 100% is never going to happen. I'd be happy with 80%+, personally.
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@Jaloopa said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
@boomzilla That's 37% of votes cast
Oh, well...have a sane number of parties or something then.
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@RaceProUK said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
That's right: 37% of the vote, 51% of seats in Parliament. And that's somehow the maximum score on the democracy index.
What's your definition of a "perfect" democracy and its voting system? I can wager that, whatever your pick, Condorcet will have already found a case that breaks it...
As soon as you start digging into the specifics, it's highly subjective in the end, so one subjective index or another
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@remi said in 🔗 Quick links thread:
What's your definition of a "perfect" democracy and its voting system?
Personally, I don't think there is or can be a 'perfect' democracy and voting system. At the moment in the UK, there's a movement to get the government to replace First Past The Post with a Proportional Representation system, but there's no agreement on what system should be used. The debate's all rather anyway, since neither Labour nor the Conservatives (the only two parties with a realistic chance of power) want to undermine themselves to benefit the Liberal Democrats (the party that would benefit most from PR).
If I had to choose, I'd want us to switch to Single Transferable Vote. It's a PR system that's not a radical change from what we have now, and is probably the best compromise between perfect proportional representation and not making voters feel stupid.
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@RaceProUK ATM, PR would probably benefit more UKIP than the LibDems, but that's probably in part because PR is not the current voting system (i.e. since in many places people know that a vote for LibDems or UKIP is equally "lost", they don't care that much about voting for a more reasonable party -- not that I'm saying that the same people would vote for one or the other, but the current first-past-the-post system does shape more than the parties that are elected by it...). Anyway, I agree that it's moot, the LibDems managed to get a referendum in the coalition agreement in 2010 and we've seen how well it worked...
More generally, a PR system (whichever variant of it) has the drawback of generally speaking preventing any party from having a majority. Depending on the political culture of the country, that can either foster coalitions and compromise and middle-ground politics (which can be seen as a good thing, or as a bad one as it precludes significant reforms that might be needed), or it can create a situation where the government breaks every few months and has to start again. This was the French system under the 4th Republic (roughly 1945-1960) and this very failure was the reason for the current French system. Is it less democratic to have a system that actually makes it possible for the government to do something rather than giving fringe parties the power to make or break it? That's very subjective...
In my mind, the democratic index should more focus on issues such as low-level involvement (how easily can a group of local citizen have an impact on local policies?), corruption, openness of the system (access to various information), accountability (in between elections, what control is there on elected officials) and such. The voting system, by itself, is not for me the major component of the level of democracy, given that any system can be gamed. It's important, sure, but perhaps not the biggest thing.
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'Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' Author Robert M. Pirsig Dies At 88 http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/24/525443040/-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-author-robert-m-pirsig-dies-at-88
RIP
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@cabrito 2017 Death pool is