I think that the idea is that more Dems use mail-in ballots than Reps. Hand in hand with tactics like restricting the number of polling stations in minority neighborhoods, it's just another component of putting their thumb on the scale.

Back in the 70's and 80's there were "Travesty Generators". You pushed some text into them and they developed linguistic rules based on probabilities determined by the text. Then you could have them generate brand new text randomly created by applying the linguistic rules developed from the source text.

Surprisingly, they would generate "brand new" words that weren't in the original text, but were real words. And the output matched stylistically to the input text. So you put in Shakespeare and you got out something that sounded like Shakespeare. You get the idea.

I built one and tried running some TS Eliot through it, because stuff is, IMHO, close to gibberish to begin with. The results were disappointing. Basically because it couldn't get any more gibberishy that the source.

I strongly suspect that the same would happen with Trump's gibberish. There used to be a bunch of Travesty Generators online, and you could probably try one out to see.

Don't say, "against their students", say, "against their customers". Which makes it sound even more ridiculous.

My question is how much "likely" translates to "voted". It seems easy to respond, "Yes", when asked on the phone, but requires a bit more enthusiasm to actually go stand in line and cast a vote.

Actually...yes. At least for the "war criminal". I think the point is that you can't hide your inner feelings from the feather. So if you genuinely, in the deepest depths of your heart, have no qualms about bombing civilians then you're fine.

I think this points out the fundamental relativistic nature of morality and how the feather copes with it. Everyone has some sort of moral compass, and the feather measures how true you were to it. And really, what more can you ask of anyone? Decide, for yourself, what is right and what is wrong and stick to it.

Putting aside the fact that a toddler probably lacks the intellectual or emotional development to have a truely personal morality, I cannot imagine that someone who "broods" all their life over kicking a kitten when they were three is anything other than the nicest most moral person you'll ever meet. I don't think that have any trouble with Anubis and Thoth.

https://youtube.com/shorts/zC8eSSvnYXg?si=cqs53b_6ggLjU7NP

Also, the final note on the bass is a mistake, but they left it in.

I wonder how depressed Giorgio Tsoukalos's dog is????

Agreed, but I don't know the mindset of those people and how to think of them. Do we just take them out of the voter pool? Are they potentially swing?

My take on 2016 was that the Dems were deeply unenthusiastic about Hillary - and who can blame them - so they didn't show up to vote. On the other hand the Reps were stoked about Trump so they turned up at the polls.

Swing voters? I don't get it. I cannot see any rational person sitting in the middle comparing Trump and Harris and picking Trump as a better presidential option. Irrational people? My gut tells me they they are probably sitting and the far ends of either camp.

My guess is that the people closer to the middle aren't actually swing voters, but they are far more likely to have their enthusiasm to vote influenced than the true believers.

The big question, in my opinion, is how much - or how little - the polls reflect the enthusiasm to go out and vote. My impression is that Dem enthusiasm in high right now, while not so much for the Reps. It's possible that a 50/50 poll may hide the fact that a big chunk of one of the 50% is much less likely to actually vote.

I'm Canadian, so I see the news but I don't have day to day experience with US voters. Of course, neither do the 90% of Americans that don't live in those swing states.

Isn't that true about all US elections? There are no "undecided" voters, just Dems and Reps and the result is always based on who can motivate their voters the most.

Anubis and Thoth weighing the heart of the dead to see if it is as light as a feather before letting them into the afterlife.

I love the idea that there's no "do this, do that", or a concrete set of rules or commandments. But the idea that if you can look back on your life, and if your heart isn't weighed down with the burden of all of the things that you did that know we're just wrong...then you can go on to the afterlife.

It's just no much more of a reasonable, adult approach to morality.

I think there might be a better way to deliver "ballistic missiles to Russia".

The travel eSIMs are a bit different. My Orange plan covers Turkey and the UK, which I specifically wanted, and probably Switzerland as well. For my wife, I needed to get a "world" plan that covered Turkey, otherwise the Europe plan would have covered the UK.

But that's an important point. The travel plans are NOT the same as regular plans in some ways.

I would have a couple years ago. In a flash. We replaced our phones a while back specifically to have eSIMs. It truth, considering the cost of Canadian roaming plans the phones have already paid for themselves.

Both of our old phones were single SIM, so using a local SIM would mean disconnecting our Canadian numbers which would put us out of touch with people back home. Which means that this card wouldn't have work for us either.

I was at the point of looking at buying a portable WiFi hot-spot, when I found out about eSIMs. So we went that route.

I have an Orange eSIM with a France number that I have kept alive by reactivating it at least once every 6 months. It's good for all Europe, without roaming charges, so that's easy to do. Having the same number all the time is convenient, but more importantly I have gone through the hassle of providing passport info to Orange, which is a government requirement if you want a number for more than a couple of weeks. I think that's an EU thing.

The local number is good for calling hotels and for making restaurant reservations. Just having that is a game changer.

For my wife's we don't need a number, so I just use Nomad for her data only eSIM, and get a new one each time. The cost is about $12-15, and you get whatever carrier you get, but the service has been good so far no I keep using Nomad.

We can text each other using WhatsApp, and you can even use WhatsApp for voice calls. The sound quality is acceptable.

We bought phones that support eSIM because we do a lot of travelling. Canadian mobile companies charge usurious rates for roaming: $15/day! Times two phones. I can get 2 weeks of data only for Europe for about $11 total on an eSIM. With voice it goes up to about $25. Total.

It has changed our lives when we travel.

Note that even if you start with an integrated wifi/router you can always by a stand-alone replacement for one function and continue to use the original unit for the other. For instance, I use my ISP supplied wifi router as a router and turn off its wifi, then use mesh wifi for whole house coverage.

I don't think that they did.

It seems weird to have a figure from Greek mythology paddling between what looks like a Christian heaven and hell.

Vintage Esterbcook nibs are often quite scratchy. Late 1940's and onwards Schaeffer pens have a much stiffer nib design and may be acceptable for modern carbon copy applications. I can't remember what that newer nib design was called, maybe "Imperial" or something like that.

Also, the hooded nib of a Parker 51 could probably stand up to carbons too.

I wanted one of these back in 1981 when I was 17. They were $1,200 at the time. Might as well have been $12,000,000 as far as 17 year old me was concerned. I finally was able to pick this one up about 10 years ago.

BTW: it has Bill Lawrence pickups.

It's just a modern version of "Fuzzy Logic"

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It's just as much a sport as figure skating or synchronised swimming.

Historically, the name came from Dave Nichol, who was president of the company for decades. He actually had a very strong hand in the selection of products that were included in the product line.

Apparently all kinds of people would pitch product ideas at him, and would taste test them and pick only ones he liked. The idea of "President's Choice" wasn't to be cheapo no name products, but unique and distinctive stuff personally picked by the company's president.

And Dave wasn't just some guy in the corner office. In his prime he was a Canadian personality, and you saw him in TV commercials. Once he left Loblaws in the '90s the President's Choice stuff lost its panache and meaning.

Maybe that's the design most compatible with the available hardware.

Often things like this are intended to be support for something else. Maybe there's something nearby that's hinged and can fold down on to it?

That's nothing. I throw up a little in my mouth every time I see "cheque" misspelled, "check".

Les Nessman comes to mind.

I'm not sure if traffic is "convenience" at this point. At least where I live, it's a nearly essential piece of functionality.

In fact, for local driving it's often the only reason to use a map app. I already know how to get to most of the places I want to go, I just need to know the best route to avoid traffic now.

You mean "flavour", right? Another small but important difference.

Thank God somebody got it.

I think it's a bit more than that. I think that the idea is that you simplify the problem so that the rubber duck could understand it. Or at least reformulate it in order to communicate it clearly.

It's the simplification, reformulation or reorganisation that helps to get the breakthrough.

Just thinking out loud isn't quite the same thing.

"Intercourse!"

Why not? He's an amazing speaker and he comes across as extremely thoughtful and intelligent.

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Beachcombers

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It goes really well with YAGNI. Also DRY without YAGNI is a recipe for premature over-architecting.

This is also one of the main benefits of TDD. There was a really good video that I can't find again of a demonstration of how TDD leads you to different solutions than you thought you use when you started. Because you code exclusively for one single requirement at a time, adding or changing just enough code to meet each new requirement without breaking the earlier tests. The design then evolves.

In all honesty, I think that happiness comes from finding a bean you love and sticking with it. Experimentation has its place, but...