Because companies aren't obliged to fulfil your needs or preferences, much as that may gall you. They are offering the product; you are deciding if it's worth your hard-earned cash. You are free to make that choice as you wish. But you can't dictate to them what they have to offer, save as mediated by the government (eg safety regulations).
I don't really get this. A pair of AirPods give you 2 hours of talk time on a single charge. How often do you have phone calls that last that long? Surely once in a blue moon? Then you stick them in their case and they're ready again in 15 mins.
Because there are things other than fidelity that matter to people, such as convenience, a lack of wires to get tangled, etc. How much these different things matter to people is a matter of judgement -- there's no right or wrong.
I didn't say those things were the job of the President, and you're being really much too narrow in your thinking. The first item on my list was the rule of law. Your very own post talks about the problem of executive creep, which is an affront to the rule of law. So yes, the Presidency affects the rule of law. You've demonstrated that it matters to you that the President uphold the rule of law -- I agree.
On all those other matters -- whether the President exercises only their lawful power of veto, influences legislation (or indeed the population at large) with their charisma and authority (which is perfectly legal too), or oversteps with executive action, the President clearly affects all these matters.
Did you really, genuinely, find any of that convincing in your head? "People who don't like the electoral college are by definition stupid dupes!"
People who support or oppose the electoral college are not ignorant simply because they've taken a view. In reaching their views, they may or may not have been ignorant of the arguments for and against an electoral college. But the view itself is not an indication of ignorance. It is really sad that you argue in a way that makes it necessary to spell this out.
If you're so sure you're not ignorant, how about you show that by summarising the main arguments for *and against* an electoral college? And how about you do it in a fair-minded way that shows you can articulate a view with which you disagree? That's the sort of stuff 11-year old kids are taught to do in debating clubs. I'm sure you think you're smarter than the typical 11-year old debater, don't you?
That I hadn't specifically excluded reform nor advocated abolition. In fact, I specifically talked about improving the voting system. While abolition of the electoral college *might* be one way that could be done, it's obviously not the only way. The very article I linked to discusses reforms of the electoral college such as moving way from winner-takes-all counting. That "wildly different" and "didn't line up with" are not synonymous.
FFS. I wasn't making a pro D or pro R point. I was saying that for *everyone*, wherever they are on the political spectrum, matters beyond taxes are surely important to them?
Where did I say that it should be abolished because the results didn't line up with the popular vote? Quote me, I dare you. You won't be able to.
What I did do was to provide a link to arguments for and against the electoral college and say I preferred the arguments against.
This insistence on reducing everything to stupid, stark, rhetoric rather than meaningful discussion the whole time -- I just don't get it. You're better than that, surely?
I understand the rationale for the electoral college. I disputed the OP's implication that it was illegitimate to discuss whether the current voting system was still fit for purpose. By asserting that it still is fit for purpose, you're joining in with a discussion that the OP has implied should not happen.
You pompous ignorant twerp. The phrase "free and fair elections" is *the* term used to describe legitimate elections, and has been ever since the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa in 1994. "Fairness" has always been a legitimate goal of an electoral system. It's why democracies have laws regulating election spending; vote counting; who can and cannot vote; etc etc.
I'm well aware of the *rationale* for the electoral college, although I'm not convinced you are -- you describe how the electoral college works (a bit) and assert it's better than a popular view, but you don't articulate why. In any event, whether you can articulate the rationale for an electoral college in any detail beyond "States!" or not, I am taking a different view from you on the soundness of the rationale.
Here is a dispassionate look at the arguments for and against an electoral college. I find the arguments against much more convincing. https://uselectionatlas.org/IN...
*That's* your sole measure of success for a Presidency? Taxes? Here are some other things other people care about: the rule of law; racism; climate change policy; education; clean water, air and land; health and healthcare; pensions; income levels; equity of opportunity; equity of outcome; gun ownership; abortion policy. None of that matters to you?
Yeah, if the election was different, the result would be different. So what?
So what, you ask? If the popular vote result and the electoral college vote result are wildly different, then people may choose to infer that the electoral college vote is no longer fair. That is what is happening. Obviously. Disagree away with their inference, but it's stupid not to acknowledge the importance of questions about whether the voting system is fair and can be improved.
And how does this work in what passes for your mind? Do tens of millions of people impersonate other people and somehow no-one notices? Or do they get their very own votes and somehow no-one notices? Do tell.
This analysis doesn't stack up. You have to consider the full energy requirements of a coal-fired EV vs a gas-powered ICE car. For example, you've not accounted for the energy costs of extraction, shipping and -- for gas but not coal -- refining. Studies that do take the time to account for all this properly typically find that the CO2e per km of coal-fired EVs is still ahead of gas-powered ICE cars.
And of course a focus on CO2 exclusively is wrong-headed. Better to have particulates and NOx centralised out of urban centres in a big power plant than pumped out into people's faces at street level.
And of course coal makes up an ever-shrinking component of electricity generation.
I really don't understand why steep hills are a problem for a BEV bus. Hill starts work really well in car-sized EVs. And obviously, downhill stretches allow for lots of regen.
What the fuck are you talking about? Why would you think it matters that a bus is in use for 8 hours? It's range that counts, dummy -- miles travelled. 8 hours in city traffic may well use far fewer miles than two hours of inter-city.
In any event, this is obviously a solved problem given that Shenzen went electric-only with 16000 buses years ago.
A typical Shenzen bus has a range of 200km and doesn't travel that much in a day. It recharges overnight (actually, in two hours) and is ready the next morning.
While you lot are busy making Beavis and Butthead look smart with your idiotic snark, most of the world are just getting on with making the change happen -- including California.
You are aware that the US has fought wars to keep oil flowing, right? I'm not sure that, say, the manufacturers of American running shoes, have been the recipients of largesse on quite that scale.
Yup. Plus, of course, there are other good reasons to move exhaust emissions from vehicles to power plants. Moving particulate emissions out of city and town centres is the most obvious.
You don't know how to distinguish "your" from "you're" You don't know how to use the term "a propos" appropriately You seem to think that what you've wittered on about here has some relevance to what I wrote; I wrote about the absurdity of replacing an obsession with straight As with an obsession with something even less attainable, to wit being the next MLK or JKR; you wrote about the relevance of degrees to job-hiring decisions some years after college. And you made a series of unwarranted assumptions based on no evidence at all: that I thought a degree is relevant to hiring decisions for jobs when people are some years out of college; that it was reasonable to restrict the discussion to only those jobs that are "logic-based"; that it was reasonable to restrict the discussion to only American educational institutions; etc.
If you were an autodidact, you weren't a very good one.
Slashdot Mirror
Because companies aren't obliged to fulfil your needs or preferences, much as that may gall you. They are offering the product; you are deciding if it's worth your hard-earned cash. You are free to make that choice as you wish. But you can't dictate to them what they have to offer, save as mediated by the government (eg safety regulations).
I don't really get this. A pair of AirPods give you 2 hours of talk time on a single charge. How often do you have phone calls that last that long? Surely once in a blue moon? Then you stick them in their case and they're ready again in 15 mins.
Because there are things other than fidelity that matter to people, such as convenience, a lack of wires to get tangled, etc. How much these different things matter to people is a matter of judgement -- there's no right or wrong.
For those reasons, my bet is either hostile state actors (Russia, North Korea) or Extinction Rebellion.
I didn't say those things were the job of the President, and you're being really much too narrow in your thinking. The first item on my list was the rule of law. Your very own post talks about the problem of executive creep, which is an affront to the rule of law. So yes, the Presidency affects the rule of law. You've demonstrated that it matters to you that the President uphold the rule of law -- I agree.
On all those other matters -- whether the President exercises only their lawful power of veto, influences legislation (or indeed the population at large) with their charisma and authority (which is perfectly legal too), or oversteps with executive action, the President clearly affects all these matters.
Did you really, genuinely, find any of that convincing in your head? "People who don't like the electoral college are by definition stupid dupes!"
People who support or oppose the electoral college are not ignorant simply because they've taken a view. In reaching their views, they may or may not have been ignorant of the arguments for and against an electoral college. But the view itself is not an indication of ignorance. It is really sad that you argue in a way that makes it necessary to spell this out.
If you're so sure you're not ignorant, how about you show that by summarising the main arguments for *and against* an electoral college? And how about you do it in a fair-minded way that shows you can articulate a view with which you disagree? That's the sort of stuff 11-year old kids are taught to do in debating clubs. I'm sure you think you're smarter than the typical 11-year old debater, don't you?
That I hadn't specifically excluded reform nor advocated abolition. In fact, I specifically talked about improving the voting system. While abolition of the electoral college *might* be one way that could be done, it's obviously not the only way. The very article I linked to discusses reforms of the electoral college such as moving way from winner-takes-all counting.
That "wildly different" and "didn't line up with" are not synonymous.
Hope this helps!
FFS. I wasn't making a pro D or pro R point. I was saying that for *everyone*, wherever they are on the political spectrum, matters beyond taxes are surely important to them?
Where did I say that it should be abolished because the results didn't line up with the popular vote? Quote me, I dare you. You won't be able to.
What I did do was to provide a link to arguments for and against the electoral college and say I preferred the arguments against.
This insistence on reducing everything to stupid, stark, rhetoric rather than meaningful discussion the whole time -- I just don't get it. You're better than that, surely?
What a surprise! My prediction came true.
Maybe. You're more generous-minded than me.
I understand the rationale for the electoral college. I disputed the OP's implication that it was illegitimate to discuss whether the current voting system was still fit for purpose. By asserting that it still is fit for purpose, you're joining in with a discussion that the OP has implied should not happen.
You pompous ignorant twerp. The phrase "free and fair elections" is *the* term used to describe legitimate elections, and has been ever since the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa in 1994. "Fairness" has always been a legitimate goal of an electoral system. It's why democracies have laws regulating election spending; vote counting; who can and cannot vote; etc etc.
Here's some help for you:
http://www.civicsacademy.co.za...
https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-...
http://archive.ipu.org/cnl-e/1...
I'm well aware of the *rationale* for the electoral college, although I'm not convinced you are -- you describe how the electoral college works (a bit) and assert it's better than a popular view, but you don't articulate why. In any event, whether you can articulate the rationale for an electoral college in any detail beyond "States!" or not, I am taking a different view from you on the soundness of the rationale.
Here is a dispassionate look at the arguments for and against an electoral college. I find the arguments against much more convincing.
https://uselectionatlas.org/IN...
That is the weirdest non-sequitur I've ever heard.
*That's* your sole measure of success for a Presidency? Taxes? Here are some other things other people care about: the rule of law; racism; climate change policy; education; clean water, air and land; health and healthcare; pensions; income levels; equity of opportunity; equity of outcome; gun ownership; abortion policy. None of that matters to you?
Yeah, if the election was different, the result would be different. So what?
So what, you ask? If the popular vote result and the electoral college vote result are wildly different, then people may choose to infer that the electoral college vote is no longer fair. That is what is happening. Obviously. Disagree away with their inference, but it's stupid not to acknowledge the importance of questions about whether the voting system is fair and can be improved.
And how does this work in what passes for your mind? Do tens of millions of people impersonate other people and somehow no-one notices? Or do they get their very own votes and somehow no-one notices? Do tell.
This analysis doesn't stack up. You have to consider the full energy requirements of a coal-fired EV vs a gas-powered ICE car. For example, you've not accounted for the energy costs of extraction, shipping and -- for gas but not coal -- refining. Studies that do take the time to account for all this properly typically find that the CO2e per km of coal-fired EVs is still ahead of gas-powered ICE cars.
And of course a focus on CO2 exclusively is wrong-headed. Better to have particulates and NOx centralised out of urban centres in a big power plant than pumped out into people's faces at street level.
And of course coal makes up an ever-shrinking component of electricity generation.
It's a conflation of trolley buses and battery electric buses. The former already exist in SF and do indeed have problems with hills. BEVs do not.
Thanks -- per drinkypoo's post below, it's clear that the issue is not with BEV buses, but trolleybuses.
I really don't understand why steep hills are a problem for a BEV bus. Hill starts work really well in car-sized EVs. And obviously, downhill stretches allow for lots of regen.
I'm curious to understand more.
What the fuck are you talking about? Why would you think it matters that a bus is in use for 8 hours? It's range that counts, dummy -- miles travelled. 8 hours in city traffic may well use far fewer miles than two hours of inter-city.
In any event, this is obviously a solved problem given that Shenzen went electric-only with 16000 buses years ago.
A typical Shenzen bus has a range of 200km and doesn't travel that much in a day. It recharges overnight (actually, in two hours) and is ready the next morning.
While you lot are busy making Beavis and Butthead look smart with your idiotic snark, most of the world are just getting on with making the change happen -- including California.
You are aware that the US has fought wars to keep oil flowing, right? I'm not sure that, say, the manufacturers of American running shoes, have been the recipients of largesse on quite that scale.
Yup. Plus, of course, there are other good reasons to move exhaust emissions from vehicles to power plants. Moving particulate emissions out of city and town centres is the most obvious.
You don't know how to distinguish "your" from "you're"
You don't know how to use the term "a propos" appropriately
You seem to think that what you've wittered on about here has some relevance to what I wrote; I wrote about the absurdity of replacing an obsession with straight As with an obsession with something even less attainable, to wit being the next MLK or JKR; you wrote about the relevance of degrees to job-hiring decisions some years after college.
And you made a series of unwarranted assumptions based on no evidence at all: that I thought a degree is relevant to hiring decisions for jobs when people are some years out of college; that it was reasonable to restrict the discussion to only those jobs that are "logic-based"; that it was reasonable to restrict the discussion to only American educational institutions; etc.
If you were an autodidact, you weren't a very good one.