Most people have zero understanding of how programs work. I have slightly more understanding than the average person and I didn’t catch that a crash log would nearly always be a text file.

Nope. I meant for running elections. You need multiple winners in the same election for SPAV to be different from just straight Approval (vote for one or more, most votes wins). With my suggestion of 5 members per district, the candidates all run for legislator of the district, and then 5 winners are chosen using SPAV. Any semi-proportional method will work, but SPAV is arguably the way to go for a whole pile of reasons.

Anyway, so if you’re a voter in that district, you will have 5 representatives you can go talk to. With a 2-party system, usually 2 or 3 of them will be from your party. The legislature as a whole would be made up of some number of these districts, each with 5 officials. They all participate in the legislature like normal, there’s no difference between the 1st awarded seat or the last.

The reason you do this is because the people in each district will be much much more likely to have at least 1 legislator that actually represents them and their district. The legislature as a whole will also approximate the voting population as a whole in terms of votes per party vs seats per party. It makes it functionally impossible to gerrymander because if you try cracking and packing you’ll really just be moving around who wins the last couple seats in any given district, but you’ll have a hard time actually changing the overall makeup of the legislature.

Should have gone with multi-member proportional districts using something like Sequential Proportional Approval Voting so that gerrymandering would be near-impossible. Five members is generally considered the minimum needed to make gerrymandering pointless to even attempt.

Should have gone with multi-member proportional districts using something like Sequential Proportional Approval Voting so that gerrymandering would be near-impossible. Five members is generally considered the minimum needed to make gerrymandering pointless to even attempt.

Imaginary numbers: proof that mathematicians don’t understand branding.

He should definitely resign from the Senate. I’m not sure if he’s legally allowed to back out of the VP nomination.

I’d have to look at the specific ballots in question. The study I’m thinking of was concerning the NYC mayor election, so it was likely designed by Democrats, but I don’t remember seeing a picture of the actual ballot in the study.

Hells yeah, have at it!

There is evidence that poor voters submit invalid RCV ballots at a higher rate than middle class and rich voters, something that isn’t true under FPTP. It’s impossible to submit an invalid ballot under Approval Voting, so that’s another mark in its favor.

It is incredibly annoying that the worst improvement is the most popular, isn’t it. Do you have the option to put through a referendum in your city/county/state? City referendums are usually accessible enough that you and your friends can commit to getting it done with a little legal help from an established organization like Election Science.

Just launch lots of tiny bits of processed earth at them super fast. More propellant efficient and you don’t have to worry that they might have packed a parachute.

Regardless, looks like there’s a plan to get everybody off the stuff by 2030.

https://www.faa.gov/unleaded

I thought that you can still sell new props that need leaded fuel, is that not the case?

We really need to get rid of that.

There’s a few YouTube channels that I think do a good job of being level-headed when it comes to analysing self-defense and giving decent advice around it. Hard2Hurt, Armchair Violence (a more general channel that recently did a video on unarmed knife defense), and Active Self Protection are three that come to mind right off the bat. All three say the same thing: • avoid sketchy locations if you can • pay attention to the people around you, especially in what are called “transition areas” like when you walk out of a store • deescalate conflict as much as possible (without giving in to demands) • leave as soon as you’re able • only fight when your hand is forced

As far as I’m aware, they all also advocate for carrying pepper spray and participating in folkstyle wrestling to use as your defensive base for things that don’t require lethal force. The problem is, you don’t have the only say on whether a situation will become a threat to your health and safety or not. Sometimes you’re just unlucky and a guy flips out on you for something petty and now you’ve got a guy pushing and shoving yelling about how he’s gonna fuck you up and you can see a pocket knife clipped in his pocket.

Most firearm uses are at very close range. If you practice your draw—and you absolutely fucking should—you should be able to draw and fire multiple rounds with a person busy punching or stabbing you. (Through what usually happens is the victim manages to get a window of separation and uses that to draw their weapon.) After a few shots your attacker will have had enough time to react to what you’re doing, but most people react to being shot in the gut by falling over. It’s mostly a psychological thing, but surprisingly effective. Once they do that, turn and run. All you’re trying to do is get them to stop hurting you so you can get away safely.

A genuine, actual answer is that when you’re being attacked, it is incredibly rare for a police officer to be standing there, ready to intervene. In life-or-death situations the police really only exist to take a report from whoever is left standing, and potentially make an arrest. There’s plenty of people out there who don’t have the strength to defend themselves in hand-to-hand combat, and even if they did, next to nobody has the skills necessary to reliably defend against a knife attack using their bare hands. That’s just plain how knife attacks work.

You can counter this with statistics that show that access to guns increases injuries and deaths, because they absolutely do, but pro-gun folks put the individual before the group on this issue. The individual, in their mind, should have the right to quick deadly force in order to facilitate defense of their own life, and other’s failure to handle that responsibility is not their problem and/or the price of that right.

There are always tradeoffs, in any policy you set for society. If you go the other direction there will be people who are victimized who would otherwise have been able to defend themselves. Which scenario is worse? How many victims of one type are worth victims of the other?

Potassium chloride is the other half. I mean, sure, if you need to limit your sodium intake, this is one way to do it, but maybe just put less salt in your food?

Good point.

Russia already stays far away from Ukrainian controlled Ukraine with their planes, because Ukraine has the ability to shoot them down. We could improve that ability, but they’re still not getting close to flying over land they don’t control.

They gave up pointless cruelty precisely because doing so cost them nothing.