In other news today...

Mason_Wheeler

What kind of language has colors with the same name as materials?

Gold, silver, copper, cobalt blue, carbon black, aquamarine, emerald... we've got a lot of colors named after materials.

djls45

@Mason_Wheeler But is that just a weird quirk of English or do a broad spectrum of language families also do the same thing?

hungrier

I'm still trying to figure out if the thing is actually plastic or what. Apple's site says "laser-etched titanium" as does everything I've been able to find about it. But then, it doesn't make sense that plastic could scratch it.

e: Cnet has a video review and it's definitely metal.

TimeBandit

@hungrier said in In other news today...:

Cnet has a video review and it's definitely metal.

And it's thicker and heavier than the Chase Saphire Preferred.

I thought Apple made thinner and lighter devices?

topspin

@djls45 said in In other news today...:

@topspin said in In other news today...:

@pie_flavor said in In other news today...:

@topspin if there were animal protection laws for hornets in California then I'd move a couple years early.

They're endangered over here. Maybe it's different there.

Do you mean bees or hornets?

Hornets. They're on the endangered list, although there's several categories there, and I neither know exactly where hornets are in nor how it translates. I've only seen few hornets my entire life, whereas wasps ~~are~~used to be fucking everywhere. It's definitely illegal to kill a hornets' nest (The maximum fine may seem ridiculous, but maximum doesn't say much and it seems unlikely you'd actually get caught anyway)
Not sure about bee nests, but I assume you're also supposed to move them instead of killing them.

topspin

@cheong said in In other news today...:

Since "Just anything Chinese police think is "good enough evidence" is enough.", unless the person was arrested on spot, it's usually fake. Given he was caught while he was about to ride on "High speed railway" to Hong Kong, this is very likely to be the case.

So they just write random accusations in your passport?
Oh well, compared to being ~~forced to give blood samples~~ organ-harvested it's pretty mild.

topspin

@hungrier said in In other news today...:

@Mason_Wheeler
But also

If two credit cards are placed in the same slot your card could become scratched

If it's titanium, how can a plastic card scratch it? Or is it "titanium" in the same way that the iPhone's display is covered in """""""""""""""sapphire""""""""""""""?

Only the camera lens is supposedly sapphire. The idea to make the whole display out of it was a failed multi-billion dollar acquisition, they never made it that far.

topspin

@Dragoon said in In other news today...:

Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election

French researcher nets $15,000 prize for finding bugs in Moscow's Ethereum-based voting system.

Holy shit, of all the blockchain solution-looking-for-a-problem things, voting systems may perhaps actually make some sense to be blockchain-based. But I'd also bet big money on the implementation being compromised in seconds.

loopback0

@topspin said in In other news today...:

Only the camera lens is supposedly sapphire.

Is that still a thing? I thought they binned it on the XR and maybe the XS.

edit: Yup, listed on the specs for the XR & XS.

pie_flavor

@topspin said in In other news today...:

@Dragoon said in In other news today...:

Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election

French researcher nets $15,000 prize for finding bugs in Moscow's Ethereum-based voting system.

Holy shit, of all the blockchain solution-looking-for-a-problem things, voting systems may perhaps actually make some sense to be blockchain-based. But I'd also bet big money on the implementation being compromised in seconds.

I think you misunderstand the point. This is Russian elections we're talking about here. They aren't paying money for election intervention exploits so they can patch them.

topspin

@pie_flavor Do you really need to hack the election if you've already put all non-Putin candidates in prison?

hungrier

@topspin said in In other news today...:

Only the camera lens is supposedly sapphire.

Right, that was it. But even then, it's not actual sapphire (Mohs level 9), but rather something that they call sapphire, but it scratches just like normal glass. :womp_wah:

djls45

@topspin said in In other news today...:

@djls45 said in In other news today...:

@topspin said in In other news today...:

@pie_flavor said in In other news today...:

@topspin if there were animal protection laws for hornets in California then I'd move a couple years early.

They're endangered over here. Maybe it's different there.

Do you mean bees or hornets?

Hornets. They're on the endangered list, although there's several categories there, and I neither know exactly where hornets are in nor how it translates. I've only seen few hornets my entire life, whereas wasps ~~are~~used to be fucking everywhere. It's definitely illegal to kill a hornets' nest (The maximum fine may seem ridiculous, but maximum doesn't say much and it seems unlikely you'd actually get caught anyway)
Not sure about bee nests, but I assume you're also supposed to move them instead of killing them.

My dad does a bit of beekeeping, and he said that bees are considered endangered*. When people find a beehive (often attached to the underside of an 18-wheeler's trailer where he lives - along I-80), they're supposed to call a beekeeper to move it. I didn't know about hornets, but I find it interesting that both bees and one of their more dangerous predators are both considered endangered.

* Apparently, someone had the Bright Idea™ of breeding African (killer) bees with honeybees to try to get the resilience of African bees and productivity (both honey and reproduction**) of honeybees in one species. Instead, they got bees with the temperament of African bees and the reproduction rate of honeybees. They come in, take over honeybee hives, kill the queen(s), drive off the rest of the honeybees, eat the honey, and move on.

** Honeybees can reproduce so quickly that a hive can split every few months.

TimeBandit

@hungrier said in In other news today...:

something that they call sapphire, but it scratches ~~just like~~ better than normal glass.

FTFApple

El_Heffe

@Mason_Wheeler said in In other news today...:

@topspin The broader context of that quote is interesting:

Because the Constitution contains no requirement for electors to follow the wishes of a political party, "the electors, once appointed, are free to vote as they choose," assuming that they cast their vote for a legally qualified candidate.

Umm... yeah. The Constitution contains no mention at all of political parties, in fact, because the Founding Fathers believed that having them at all was a stupid idea. (They turned out to be right.)

It has nothing to do with political parties. Even if you completely abolished political parties, if Candidate A gets the most votes in a state then the electors should cast their vote for Candidate A.

What is the point of having an election if electors are free to ignore everything and just vote however they want? That makes no sense.

LaoC

@TimeBandit said in In other news today...:

iPhones are safe

They were holding them wrong.

LaoC

Don't trust Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, boffins warn: Zuck & Co know that hash is king

Extraaa! Facebook is trying to track you! No, really! News at 11!

LaoC

@djls45 said in In other news today...:

@Mason_Wheeler But is that just a weird quirk of English or do a broad spectrum of language families also do the same thing?

In most languages I've had contact with, color names at least involve an affix so you can easily tell.
German: Silber -> silbern
Portuguese: prata -> prateado
French: argent -> argenté
Lao: ເງິນ (ngoen) -> ສີເງິນ (si-ngoen)

Fun fact: in Lao, every color is named after a thing, but you say "si-" before to indicate it's a color. Blue is color-sky, brown is color-sugar, white is color-rice and so on.
I suppose there's quite a number of languages that behave the same as English wrt this though.

Tsaukpaetra

@TimeBandit said in In other news today...:

@Mason_Wheeler You're ~~holding~~touching it wrong ™

Also, don't clean it with compressed air. That could damage it too.

LaoC

@Tsaukpaetra said in In other news today...:

@TimeBandit said in In other news today...:

@Mason_Wheeler You're ~~holding~~touching it wrong ™

Also, don't clean it with compressed air. That could damage it too.

1 bar is barely OK. Apple recommends living in mountainous or rainy areas to avoid exposure to excessive air pressure.

Zecc

@El_Heffe said in In other news today...:

What is the point of having an election if electors are free to ignore everything and just vote however they want? That makes no sense.

dkf

@Mason_Wheeler said in In other news today...:

@hungrier So what happens if you feed it before midnight, but then a little sliver gets stuck in its teeth...

It's not a problem. The card uses iFloss.

dkf

@djls45 said in In other news today...:

On the other hand, what sort of company names something using {color} {material} order when they really mean {material-color} order?

All credit card companies do that. Or did you think that your gold credit card was entirely made out of a material unsuited for the job?

Zecc

@LaoC said in In other news today...:

In most languages I've had contact with, color names at least involve an affix so you can easily tell.
German: Silber -> silbern
Portuguese: prata -> prateado
French: argent -> argenté
Lao: ເງິນ (ngoen) -> ສີເງິນ (si-ngoen)

Do "orange" now.

I'm not making a point, I'm actually curious about how the word for the color and the word for the fruit translate in these languages. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they are usually the same word.

French: orange (fruit) -> orange (color)
Portuguese: laranja (fruit) -> laranja (color)
German (not sure, used GoogTrans): Orange (fruit) -> orange (color)
Lao:

adjective
ສີແສດ — orange, vermilion

noun
ໝາກກ້ຽງ — orange, orange

Interesting how in Lao in is a completelu different word, from what I can tell.

lolwhat

@hungrier said in In other news today...:

@Mason_Wheeler

A support note from Cupertino, spotted by AppleInsider, says the card should be kept away from leather and denim to avoid discolouration, and also away from hard surfaces, to avoid scratching its white finish.

Users are warned not to use household cleaners on the card, nor compressed air and aersols, nor any solvents, or ammonia, or anything abrasive to clean it.

Also, don't expose it to bright lights, get it wet, or feed it after midnight.

And don't even think about taunting it!

dkf

@El_Heffe said in In other news today...:

What is the point of having an election if electors are free to ignore everything and just vote however they want? That makes no sense.

How electors in the electoral college are bound (or not) by what their state's electorate voted for is a matter of state law at best. It's not universal that they all have to vote for what the majority of electorate in the state chose; there are two states which instead apportion their electors according to the proportion of votes cast.

LaoC

@Zecc said in In other news today...:

@LaoC said in In other news today...:

In most languages I've had contact with, color names at least involve an affix so you can easily tell.
German: Silber -> silbern
Portuguese: prata -> prateado
French: argent -> argenté
Lao: ເງິນ (ngoen) -> ສີເງິນ (si-ngoen)

Do "orange" now.

I'm not making a point, I'm actually curious about how the word for the color and the word for the fruit translate in these languages. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they are usually the same word.

You're right. Strictly speaking it would be "cor de laranja" in Portuguese but usually you say just "laranja". In French it seems to be (my French is really bad so I'm not sure) completely the same. In German you write them the same but you hear the final e only in the fruit, not the color.

French: orange (fruit) -> orange (color)
Portuguese: laranja (fruit) -> laranja (color)
German (not sure, used GoogTrans): Orange (fruit) -> orange (color)
Lao:

adjective
ສີແສດ — orange, vermilion

noun
ໝາກກ້ຽງ — orange, orange

Interesting how in Lao in is a completelu different word, from what I can tell.

That's because the orange is not a native fruit¹. The "khiang" in mak-khiang is how they laofied the French. It's obviously what people heard—"olang" would work in Lao as well but they didn't hear the throaty "r" in French as r that would turn into l but more as an aspirated k. Si-saed is more ochre, the bright orange like monk's robes is si-som, "color-vinegar".

¹ Hum, just like in Germany. No idea what they called the color before they knew the fruit.

acrow

@hungrier said in In other news today...:

e: Cnet has a video review and it's definitely metal.

It'll develop nice stripes then, from chafing the contacts on the way into the reader. And maybe leave metal deposits, possibly leading to being banned from some shops.

MrL

@Zecc said in In other news today...:

Do "orange" now.

I'm not making a point, I'm actually curious about how the word for the color and the word for the fruit translate in these languages. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they are usually the same word.

"Same word"... yeah, let's look at Polish..
Fruit: pomarańcza
Color: pomarańczowy
Color as a noun: pomarańcz

topspin

@LaoC said in In other news today...:

Hum, just like in Germany. No idea what they called the color before they knew the fruit.

Now I'm really curious about that.

LaoC

@topspin said in In other news today...:

@LaoC said in In other news today...:

Hum, just like in Germany. No idea what they called the color before they knew the fruit.

Now I'm really curious about that.

I hear everything was a variation of dirt-colored there before the Romans appeared with their apples and oranges.

Edit: actually, no, the Romans didn't know oranges either

Bulb

@topspin Apparently the word meant the colour before it meant the fruit, the fruit being originally called equivalent of “orange apple”. The Wikitionary entry also mentions what the colour was called in English before (Oranges are not native in England either), but I don't see it mention the same for German.

LaoC

@Bulb said in In other news today...:

@topspin Apparently the word meant the colour before it meant the fruit, the fruit being originally called equivalent of “orange apple”. The Wikitionary entry also mentions what the colour was called in English before (Oranges are not native in England either), but I don't see it mention the same for German.

Since the Old English "ġeolurēad" has Germanic roots, it was probably something very similar.
to find out

HardwareGeek

@dkf said in In other news today...:

@El_Heffe said in In other news today...:

What is the point of having an election if electors are free to ignore everything and just vote however they want? That makes no sense.

How electors in the electoral college are bound (or not) by what their state's electorate voted for is a matter of state law at best. It's not universal that they all have to vote for what the majority of electorate in the state chose; there are two states which instead apportion their electors according to the proportion of votes cast.

And several states require their electors to vote according to the national popular vote, regardless of how their own state's voters voted. Way to disenfranchise your own citizens.

MrL

I never understood what you need electors for. Looks like you couldn't decide if you're a country or a federation.

Luhmann

@djls45
Yes

HardwareGeek

@MrL The founding fathers really distrusted the general populace. Full democracy = mob rule; the majority can run roughshod over the minority. That's why we have a representative government; the people elect smart, well qualified, ethical people (in theory) to represent them, who then use their own judgement in making decisions on behalf of the people, balancing the desires of the majority with the rights of the minority, the best interest of the region they represent with the best interest of the whole nation. Originally, not only was the President elected indirectly, so were the Senators; the people elected their state legislators, who then used their wisdom to choose the Senators to represent their state in Congress.

Also, they very much distrusted a strong central government. The Federal government was intended to be only strong enough to perform vital functions that had to be done by the nation as a whole rather than by individual states — foreign policy, including war when necessary, trade between the states.

The original attempt to form a central government (Articles of Confederation) was so weak that it was thoroughly disfunctional. It didn't even have the power to levy taxes to fund itself; it had to rely on voluntary contributions from the states.

Our current Constitution was an attempt (and a mostly successful one) to strengthen it just enough to function. The power of the Federal government is limited, and consists of (in theory) only those powers explicitly delegated to it by the states. Of course, over time, power has become more and more centralized, and now the central government sets many policies that should be set at the state or local level, and the states beg the Federal government for money to finance local projects like commuter transit.

In theory, we are a federation of semi-autonomous states; in practice, the states have yielded most of their autonomy to the Federal government.

Carnage

@Zecc said in In other news today...:

Do "orange" now.

Swedish: Apelsin -> Orange
And I'm pretty sure there is an old swedish name for the color as well as orange, but me being a man can barely name the prime colors.

Mason_Wheeler

@Zecc said in In other news today...:

@LaoC said in In other news today...:

In most languages I've had contact with, color names at least involve an affix so you can easily tell.
German: Silber -> silbern
Portuguese: prata -> prateado
French: argent -> argenté
Lao: ເງິນ (ngoen) -> ສີເງິນ (si-ngoen)

Do "orange" now.

I'm not making a point, I'm actually curious about how the word for the color and the word for the fruit translate in these languages. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they are usually the same word.

French: orange (fruit) -> orange (color)
Portuguese: laranja (fruit) -> laranja (color)
German (not sure, used GoogTrans): Orange (fruit) -> orange (color)

Spanish: naranja (fruit) -> anaranjado (color: literally "like orange-fruit")

MrL

@HardwareGeek said in In other news today...:

@MrL The founding fathers really distrusted the general populace. Full democracy = mob rule; the majority can run roughshod over the minority. That's why we have a representative government; the people elect smart, well qualified, ethical people (in theory) to represent them, who then use their own judgement in making decisions on behalf of the people, balancing the desires of the majority with the rights of the minority, the best interest of the region they represent with the best interest of the whole nation. Originally, not only was the President elected indirectly, so were the Senators; the people elected their state legislators, who then used their wisdom to choose the Senators to represent their state in Congress.

Also, they very much distrusted a strong central government. The Federal government was intended to be only strong enough to perform vital functions that had to be done by the nation as a whole rather than by individual states — foreign policy, including war when necessary, trade between the states.

The original attempt to form a central government (Articles of Confederation) was so weak that it was thoroughly disfunctional. It didn't even have the power to levy taxes to fund itself; it had to rely on voluntary contributions from the states.

Our current Constitution was an attempt (and a mostly successful one) to strengthen it just enough to function. The power of the Federal government is limited, and consists of (in theory) only those powers explicitly delegated to it by the states. Of course, over time, power has become more and more centralized, and now the central government sets many policies that should be set at the state or local level, and the states beg the Federal government for money to finance local projects like commuter transit.

In theory, we are a federation of semi-autonomous states; in practice, the states have yielded most of their autonomy to the Federal government.

I understand that. My questions was why do you keep useless institution of electors.

hungrier

@acrow said in In other news today...:

@hungrier said in In other news today...:

e: Cnet has a video review and it's definitely metal.

It'll develop nice stripes then, from chafing the contacts on the way into the reader. And maybe leave metal deposits, possibly leading to being banned from some shops.

Apparently there are other metal credit cards as well, but the Apple card is thicker so this would be more of an issue.

izzion

@El_Heffe
When we vote for president, we are actually voting for a specific set of electors who have said they will vote for candidate X. In modern practice, the slate is usually put up by the political parties and is typically made up of party insiders from the state.

Overall, probably a practice we’d be better off without at this point, and just certify the electoral votes based on the state popular vote, but hey

HardwareGeek

@MrL Practically, because it's the way the Constitution says it must be done. Amending the Constitution is a difficult process, and I don't think there is sufficient political unity in the country now, nor in the foreseeable future, to ratify an amendment. You can be reasonably certain some states will oppose it because the Electoral College gives them more prominence in national politics. Voting to abolish it would be voting to diminish their own political power, which is something politicians tend to avoid. Some small swing states would practically cease to exist politically without the electoral votes they control.

hungrier

Brad Bennett / Aug 22, 2019

Canada working on a standard payment method for EV charging

The Government of Canada is investing in a Quebec-based company to develop payment standards for EV charging.

They're wasting their time, Apple already released one

Mason_Wheeler

@hungrier said in In other news today...:

They're wasting their time, Apple already released one

This one is for the people who wear jeans.

hungrier

@Mason_Wheeler But really, I don't see why they can't just accept credit cards or any standard payment methods.

Carnage

Having electors could actually serve a purpose if the one that has been elected by the people is a litteral Stalin, and is murdering people all over the place. Then the electors can go "Naaah, fuck it, I aint picking that dude."
This also holds true for less silly cases. For the most part, they are a quaint remnant of a bygone era, but they could have a purpose of a final sanity check still.

But I seem to recall that the rules for the electors vary by state, so in some cases they really are just a messenger. I may be wrong, and I didn't read the linked article with some relevant stuff in it either, because I don't live in the US so I feel that they can have whatever system they see fit and I don't really need to get involved too deeply in it. I'd rather keep close tabs on the European and Swedish shenanigans.

TimeBandit

@hungrier said in In other news today...:

I don't see why they can't just accept credit cards or any standard payment methods

They probably don't want to give a percentage of the payment to the bank

hungrier

@TimeBandit I'm sure gas stations, restaurants and Costco don't like it either, but that's the way we pay for things.

Mason_Wheeler

@Carnage said in In other news today...:

Having electors could actually serve a purpose if the one that has been elected by the people is a litteral Stalin, and is murdering people all over the place. Then the electors can go "Naaah, fuck it, I aint picking that dude."
This also holds true for less silly cases.

...so in other words, exactly what happened in the incident that precipitated this conversation?