It's pretty fucking easy to work this out: Democrat == big government nanny state; Republican == small government. What we have today is a bunch of sociopathic extremists that can't help but compete in a popcon, riding their white and black stallions, pushing for full socialism under another name or... honestly I'm not sure what the far right has in mind, their goals seem to be primarily reactionary. Right now we're "threatened" because of this huge "terrorism" thing the media won't shut up about, so now the trend seems to be to react to the military threat by military force. At one point there was a reaction to the demoralization of America (which is actually happening), and the reaction was similarly overblown and mishandled.
I want someone who wants small-government, which is never anyone in the Democrat party. They're also by definition progressive (rather than conservative), which means they're of the mind of "how can we change?" instead of "Should we change?" The second question needs asking and it needs asking BEFORE the first; but someone of a moderate stance will struggle on the second question before conceding, rather than fighting beyond all logic to keep the status quo. I need a candidate that will RESIST change, not continuously meddle-- no matter how slow they want to go. But I do need a candidate that WILL change when it's proven that change is needed.
As for worst possible candidates, as I said, I just don't vote for any of 'em. Fuck it. If all I'm given is stupidity, I'm not getting on board with the least stupid; you're just going to be the last one to sail into a rock.
Carrol County: $5000 per student-year. Best schools in the state.
Baltimore county: I think the tech school I went to gets $8000. They have a giant fucking bay where they build full scale houses, and then giant doors open and the house splits in half and 2 trucks come take them away. They have an automotive shop. They have a full hospital wing and frequently wheel in dead bodies to teach students how to perform surgeries. Always have new computers every 3-5 years (sometimes teachers waive this because we don't need them and they want the money for other shit). Always have books in usable condition, not tattered and written and falling apart. There is a FULL RESTAURANT FACILITY and the students run it, and learn full culinary arts from sanitization and safety to the technical implementation of recipes, all the way out to setting restaurant atmosphere.
Baltimore City: $13000 per student-year. 25 year old books, shared because half of them fell apart physically. Rickety desks, no computers, large classrooms, poorly paid teachers. Kids can't be controlled. Fifth graders can't read and write-- I can't imagine how the fuck this happens, because all you need is ten bucks for a fucking PENCIL and PAPER to teach a class of students to read and write.
No, democrat-moderate doesn't lean into my political views, so I won't vote for them. Simple as that. I can respect them; but this isn't the guy *I* would put in power.
If "the best we can get" gets 80% of the popular vote, that'll be seen as "the will of the people." If he wins, but only with 20%, then you can argue that the will of the people is not currently available and the few that decide to vote are only voting for something that's not as bad, or just you appeal to very few people and most people don't see anything they care for at all.
No, I want my vote to be someone who isn't marginalized. McCain could have won. He didn't; and a "landslide victory" against doesn't mean he COULDN'T have. But every other candidate that popped up was quickly marginalized; they all fell out before the presidential election, and McCain got to go against Obama.
When you find a good candidate, maybe he'll run in the primaries. And then you'll see him get 15% of the votes, and the guy with 55% winds up running in the presidential. Then he becomes less popular, and next term gets 5% of the votes. Then he becomes like the guy that was running against Clinton in the 90s, I forget who. I think he still runs and gets like 0.5% in the primaries.
The most basic high school economics class teaches us that the government regulates economy, slowing it down or speeding it up by controls such as taxes and loan interest rates. Raising taxes can thus devastate the economy-- and even reduce government revenue, since money is double-taxed (corporation then individual). A VAT tax might be better, IF we eliminate sales tax and maybe reduce/eliminate taxes on business operations (i.e. income tax for businesses). That way we tax every dollar businesses SPEND on things; businesses pay part of "sales tax" (the $1 you spend to make a coffee cake (including VAT on $1 for the materials you bought) becomes $2, and the wholesale buyer pays tax on $1) and consumers pay the other part (he sells it for $3, and the consumer pays tax on $1, instead of on $3); and any money businesses spend paying salaries passes through the business untaxed, only being taxed as it lands in the hands of the individual.
If a business makes $10 million and spend $8 million buying things or hiring contractors, I want it to pay taxes on $8 million. The other $2 million going out to pay wages should go through untaxed; the employees pay taxes.
I've considered running but I don't see how I can win and really, my burden of office is rather selective. If I ever win an election, it'll be by publishing a sci-fi series and then running based on what's in the book; and even then I'd get kicked out easy.
I am in favor of a top-down view of economics. Really, trickle down economics is pretty straight forward: A huge pile of money is worthless; corporations tag some 1%-3% of revenue in profits, and dividend-paying corporations send that stuff right out to shareholders (this is why they're so rich: they get paid dividends). That's a LOT of money getting pushed around though; and shareholders, rich as they are, are idiots who buy $25 million houses and private jumbo jets and yachts with crews. Money IN THE BANK powers the economy, too; so don't tell me they hoard cash and that locks up the economy, because your bank is busy using your money for loans and venture capital investments to power small businesses.
As nicely thought out as that seems (that was a brief), and as much as I could go get a degree in economics (it's called "expanding your knowledge," look it up; you should do this before you're put in charge of shit), I don't care about economics. Not in terms of running for a political seat anyway.
I believe economics is a function of society; thus a bottom-up approach to society is needed. Schools are a good start; but schools are also a culture influence. I can improve our culture by improving our schools, by improving the teaching of math and literature as well as the basic ideals we're founded on.
And therein lies the problem: the head-on concern I'd have for schools is efficiency. Why is it the best schools spend $4000-$6000 per student year, while the worst chew through $13000+ and have 15 year old books? I love 15 year old books; I just bought a math book published in 1995 and it's the best book on algebra I've ever read (I'm solidifying my grasp of algebra and geometry. Hard. This needs doing). That said, a book that's been in a middle school classroom for 15 years is going to fall apart. The content is good; but the pages are torn, written in, and some are missing. The spine has dematerialized. Why are there no computers, no high-tech gadgets, poorly paid teachers, falling apart desks, and yet out of $13000 per student PER YEAR you can't spend $100 per student per class to buy a brand new book?
The obvious problem here is that fixing the problem requires a cash injection or a plan. A budget plan... oh fuck it. I could do this on $5000/year, so I'd be cutting back 60%-70% of the school funding.
And people would shit bricks.
$1000 for each student for a computer would be overkill even; not every classroom has a computer. $1000 for books would be nuts, since that'd be about 10 classes and you don't need a book for gym (plus students have 5-6 classes). Then each student needs a new desk, a new chair, so we're up to around $2500. Each teacher manages 20 students at once, so we can call that $50,000/year and have our $5000/year budget. But wait! Desks should last 3-5 years, same with books and computers! I could pay teachers better and/or have smaller classes. There should be room left over for extracurriculars.
See the problem? "Why does Bob Ehrlich want to cut budgets for underperforming schools?" "Did you know Bob Ehrlich wanted to hire a COMMERCIAL contractor to fix our school systems?" These things MAKE SENSE. Hire an EXPERT, a company that deals with this kind of shit. Too much money is going into the schools and vanishing; find out why, fix it, then correct the budget. But no matter what you do, you're going to open yourself to attack. Our current Republican candidate gets attack ads primarily focused on his excellent plans for improving our school systems.
As for technical details, if I were in a position to effect change I'd have the following happen, in the given order:
All school systems would get new books. I'm sorry, but desks an
The problem is if I vote for one shithead I get Obama fucking up the country, and if I vote for another shithead I get McCain fucking up the country. Give me a conservative-moderate that can actually WIN and I'll be happy to vote for this. Give me a democrate-moderate that can win and I'll hope the other party votes him in instead of the complete psycho off-the-left-end nutjob that they want to paint as "just barely a touch to the left of center-- not liberal at all."
Maybe we should add an option to Ad-Block to register a click randomly on one of the ads that was blocked, when it's been "on screen" for several seconds, one ad one time per page load.
Or, to rephrase the question: would you oppose the system if it wasn't about ads but just another innovation in captchas?.
lol. Video that I probably can't see without a working plug-in (and don't tell me "It's flash," that's why I don't have much luck with YouTube... yay for HTML5). On my flaky high-bandwidth connection that can barely chug down a YouTube video.
The Chinese Suan Pan had 5 earth beads and 2 heaven on each rod, with each heaven bead being 5. You counted 1, 2, 3, 4, then zero'd the Earth and shifted a Heaven bead for 5; 6, 7, 8, 9, then zero'd and shifted a Heaven bead to make 10; then 11, 12, 13, 14, and then finally used that last Earth bead to make 5 + 10 = 15. Then 1 on the next rod meant 16. This is because there were 16 liang to 1 jin.
I think improved furniture would be a boon, but not to the tune of this ridiculous shit at $600.
First there's price. Yes, a $50 chair of ergonomic contours and aesthetically pleasing lines and tone would be better than a $5 chair of plastic shit. Perhaps wood, polished, gently curved and indented such to offer support without pressure points-- even cushionless this can be done. As much as this sounds like some major research, it's not; the concepts are roughly well understood and something roughly made to fit some basic ergonomic design patterns can both look like a normal chair and supply more comfort than a boxy piece of plastic shit. It doesn't have to be a $700 "perfect" (bullshit) executive chair with fancy cushions and swivel and such; improvements can be made at the lower price points.
Second, the visual noise is disgusting. Something more Shibui would be more conducive to the classroom environment. Something that occupies the mind with complexity without drawing attention. Elegant simplicity with infinite complexity.
What's with all this green martian space age bullshit?
Already in progress. I have a submarine bill on the books (a bill that does a bunch of other stuff, and has a minor provision for this) that instigates the death penalty for anyone illegally selling drugs known to cause severe medical hazards in acute dosage or severe physical addiction. So heroin, cocaine, etc, sold to kids (as normally happens here.. hell 15 year olds often sell the shit) is instant execution.
Maybe because in one model, you keep finding torrents you can't download because they're behind paywalls and stupid shit, and the torrents vanish eventually, or never download because of no seeds; while in the other, information actually persists and the network isn't reliant on any given operator.
I know. It's astonishing because people shifted off a "do a search and find something; it never fucking goes away" model to a "file on a network with a backing tracker that eventually disappears and the likelihood of leechers that download a torrent and then disconnect so 99% of the shit out there has no seeds." We left the model where you could always find anything ages ago.
Go no more 'stems from the concepts of life and death than chess or checkers.'
In Go, your most advantageous skill is recognizing shapes that suggest life or death. Can you make this group of stones uncapturable? Can you make a play that prevents the opponent from making a group of their stones uncapturable? If these stones are dead, you can safely ignore them; if they are alive, you don't have to worry about capture and you can leverage them. If they are unsettled, you should take action here.
In Chess or Checkers, you have no way to guarantee that even a single piece cannot be captured; you can only assure that that piece is "protected" such that if the black Queen takes your Bishop you can capture her with your Knight. In Checkers there isn't even that: pieces "guarding" other pieces become jump chains for your opponent to devastate.
Go also has a definition to it's goal. "Remove all of your opponents pieces". Go is won by defeat of your opponent. Period.
Go is won by the control of territory. A failed invasion is construed as a loss of territory: capturing a piece gains you a point, but with the alternation of play leading to ultimate capture in an invasion I would play exactly as many stones as you would in my territory to capture if played out. If I simply kill your stones and don't capture, I still retain them as prisoners after the game is over (capture dead stones), which has the same effect; in which case playing out the capture would serve to REDUCE my score. In the case of a futile run, you send me more pieces to capture while I ignore them, then play to capture, INCREASING my score.
If both players recognize the death of those stones the moment they are dead, then the net gain for both sides is zero; a struggling invader will increase his opponent's score, and an overzealous defender will reduce his own score to finish capturing.
It seems you have no idea how Go is played.
If I had to pick only one game per group, would rather see my engineers playing Go and my lawyers playing Chess.
Go is to philosophers and warriors what Chess is to merchants and accountants. (It would be more kind to say Go appeals to the philosopher in a man and Chess to the merchant in him; but less correct.) That said, I would rather see engineers and managers (generals are managers, are they not?) playing Go, and Lawyers I suppose would find more interest in Chess. You can't much help a lawyer.
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Speaker? Is that you?
Geordi
It's pretty fucking easy to work this out: Democrat == big government nanny state; Republican == small government. What we have today is a bunch of sociopathic extremists that can't help but compete in a popcon, riding their white and black stallions, pushing for full socialism under another name or ... honestly I'm not sure what the far right has in mind, their goals seem to be primarily reactionary. Right now we're "threatened" because of this huge "terrorism" thing the media won't shut up about, so now the trend seems to be to react to the military threat by military force. At one point there was a reaction to the demoralization of America (which is actually happening), and the reaction was similarly overblown and mishandled.
I want someone who wants small-government, which is never anyone in the Democrat party. They're also by definition progressive (rather than conservative), which means they're of the mind of "how can we change?" instead of "Should we change?" The second question needs asking and it needs asking BEFORE the first; but someone of a moderate stance will struggle on the second question before conceding, rather than fighting beyond all logic to keep the status quo. I need a candidate that will RESIST change, not continuously meddle-- no matter how slow they want to go. But I do need a candidate that WILL change when it's proven that change is needed.
As for worst possible candidates, as I said, I just don't vote for any of 'em. Fuck it. If all I'm given is stupidity, I'm not getting on board with the least stupid; you're just going to be the last one to sail into a rock.
Ahnald Schwarzinegger is the next US president.
Carrol County: $5000 per student-year. Best schools in the state.
Baltimore county: I think the tech school I went to gets $8000. They have a giant fucking bay where they build full scale houses, and then giant doors open and the house splits in half and 2 trucks come take them away. They have an automotive shop. They have a full hospital wing and frequently wheel in dead bodies to teach students how to perform surgeries. Always have new computers every 3-5 years (sometimes teachers waive this because we don't need them and they want the money for other shit). Always have books in usable condition, not tattered and written and falling apart. There is a FULL RESTAURANT FACILITY and the students run it, and learn full culinary arts from sanitization and safety to the technical implementation of recipes, all the way out to setting restaurant atmosphere.
Baltimore City: $13000 per student-year. 25 year old books, shared because half of them fell apart physically. Rickety desks, no computers, large classrooms, poorly paid teachers. Kids can't be controlled. Fifth graders can't read and write-- I can't imagine how the fuck this happens, because all you need is ten bucks for a fucking PENCIL and PAPER to teach a class of students to read and write.
See the problem? Hint: It's not a money problem.
No, democrat-moderate doesn't lean into my political views, so I won't vote for them. Simple as that. I can respect them; but this isn't the guy *I* would put in power.
If "the best we can get" gets 80% of the popular vote, that'll be seen as "the will of the people." If he wins, but only with 20%, then you can argue that the will of the people is not currently available and the few that decide to vote are only voting for something that's not as bad, or just you appeal to very few people and most people don't see anything they care for at all.
This.
Like Franklin D. Roosevelt, well-known as America's best president. We never should have let the Japs and Jews out of their concentration camps.
Ask the other poster about his "brightness" knob.
No, I want my vote to be someone who isn't marginalized. McCain could have won. He didn't; and a "landslide victory" against doesn't mean he COULDN'T have. But every other candidate that popped up was quickly marginalized; they all fell out before the presidential election, and McCain got to go against Obama.
When you find a good candidate, maybe he'll run in the primaries. And then you'll see him get 15% of the votes, and the guy with 55% winds up running in the presidential. Then he becomes less popular, and next term gets 5% of the votes. Then he becomes like the guy that was running against Clinton in the 90s, I forget who. I think he still runs and gets like 0.5% in the primaries.
The most basic high school economics class teaches us that the government regulates economy, slowing it down or speeding it up by controls such as taxes and loan interest rates. Raising taxes can thus devastate the economy-- and even reduce government revenue, since money is double-taxed (corporation then individual). A VAT tax might be better, IF we eliminate sales tax and maybe reduce/eliminate taxes on business operations (i.e. income tax for businesses). That way we tax every dollar businesses SPEND on things; businesses pay part of "sales tax" (the $1 you spend to make a coffee cake (including VAT on $1 for the materials you bought) becomes $2, and the wholesale buyer pays tax on $1) and consumers pay the other part (he sells it for $3, and the consumer pays tax on $1, instead of on $3); and any money businesses spend paying salaries passes through the business untaxed, only being taxed as it lands in the hands of the individual.
If a business makes $10 million and spend $8 million buying things or hiring contractors, I want it to pay taxes on $8 million. The other $2 million going out to pay wages should go through untaxed; the employees pay taxes.
I've considered running but I don't see how I can win and really, my burden of office is rather selective. If I ever win an election, it'll be by publishing a sci-fi series and then running based on what's in the book; and even then I'd get kicked out easy.
I am in favor of a top-down view of economics. Really, trickle down economics is pretty straight forward: A huge pile of money is worthless; corporations tag some 1%-3% of revenue in profits, and dividend-paying corporations send that stuff right out to shareholders (this is why they're so rich: they get paid dividends). That's a LOT of money getting pushed around though; and shareholders, rich as they are, are idiots who buy $25 million houses and private jumbo jets and yachts with crews. Money IN THE BANK powers the economy, too; so don't tell me they hoard cash and that locks up the economy, because your bank is busy using your money for loans and venture capital investments to power small businesses.
As nicely thought out as that seems (that was a brief), and as much as I could go get a degree in economics (it's called "expanding your knowledge," look it up; you should do this before you're put in charge of shit), I don't care about economics. Not in terms of running for a political seat anyway.
I believe economics is a function of society; thus a bottom-up approach to society is needed. Schools are a good start; but schools are also a culture influence. I can improve our culture by improving our schools, by improving the teaching of math and literature as well as the basic ideals we're founded on.
And therein lies the problem: the head-on concern I'd have for schools is efficiency. Why is it the best schools spend $4000-$6000 per student year, while the worst chew through $13000+ and have 15 year old books? I love 15 year old books; I just bought a math book published in 1995 and it's the best book on algebra I've ever read (I'm solidifying my grasp of algebra and geometry. Hard. This needs doing). That said, a book that's been in a middle school classroom for 15 years is going to fall apart. The content is good; but the pages are torn, written in, and some are missing. The spine has dematerialized. Why are there no computers, no high-tech gadgets, poorly paid teachers, falling apart desks, and yet out of $13000 per student PER YEAR you can't spend $100 per student per class to buy a brand new book?
The obvious problem here is that fixing the problem requires a cash injection or a plan. A budget plan... oh fuck it. I could do this on $5000/year, so I'd be cutting back 60%-70% of the school funding.
And people would shit bricks.
$1000 for each student for a computer would be overkill even; not every classroom has a computer. $1000 for books would be nuts, since that'd be about 10 classes and you don't need a book for gym (plus students have 5-6 classes). Then each student needs a new desk, a new chair, so we're up to around $2500. Each teacher manages 20 students at once, so we can call that $50,000/year and have our $5000/year budget. But wait! Desks should last 3-5 years, same with books and computers! I could pay teachers better and/or have smaller classes. There should be room left over for extracurriculars.
See the problem? "Why does Bob Ehrlich want to cut budgets for underperforming schools?" "Did you know Bob Ehrlich wanted to hire a COMMERCIAL contractor to fix our school systems?" These things MAKE SENSE. Hire an EXPERT, a company that deals with this kind of shit. Too much money is going into the schools and vanishing; find out why, fix it, then correct the budget. But no matter what you do, you're going to open yourself to attack. Our current Republican candidate gets attack ads primarily focused on his excellent plans for improving our school systems.
As for technical details, if I were in a position to effect change I'd have the following happen, in the given order:
The problem is if I vote for one shithead I get Obama fucking up the country, and if I vote for another shithead I get McCain fucking up the country. Give me a conservative-moderate that can actually WIN and I'll be happy to vote for this. Give me a democrate-moderate that can win and I'll hope the other party votes him in instead of the complete psycho off-the-left-end nutjob that they want to paint as "just barely a touch to the left of center-- not liberal at all."
In the book Shibumi, Trevanian says that it is a truism of american politics that anyone who can win an election most definitely does not deserve to.
rival the level of knowledge that hardcore game designers typically have of Physics and Geometry.
You mean, it's almost right, and looks like it's doing what you think it's doing, so it's good? ... oh shit rocket jump!
Maybe we should add an option to Ad-Block to register a click randomly on one of the ads that was blocked, when it's been "on screen" for several seconds, one ad one time per page load.
Or, to rephrase the question: would you oppose the system if it wasn't about ads but just another innovation in captchas?.
lol. Video that I probably can't see without a working plug-in (and don't tell me "It's flash," that's why I don't have much luck with YouTube ... yay for HTML5). On my flaky high-bandwidth connection that can barely chug down a YouTube video.
The Chinese Suan Pan had 5 earth beads and 2 heaven on each rod, with each heaven bead being 5. You counted 1, 2, 3, 4, then zero'd the Earth and shifted a Heaven bead for 5; 6, 7, 8, 9, then zero'd and shifted a Heaven bead to make 10; then 11, 12, 13, 14, and then finally used that last Earth bead to make 5 + 10 = 15. Then 1 on the next rod meant 16. This is because there were 16 liang to 1 jin.
I think improved furniture would be a boon, but not to the tune of this ridiculous shit at $600.
First there's price. Yes, a $50 chair of ergonomic contours and aesthetically pleasing lines and tone would be better than a $5 chair of plastic shit. Perhaps wood, polished, gently curved and indented such to offer support without pressure points-- even cushionless this can be done. As much as this sounds like some major research, it's not; the concepts are roughly well understood and something roughly made to fit some basic ergonomic design patterns can both look like a normal chair and supply more comfort than a boxy piece of plastic shit. It doesn't have to be a $700 "perfect" (bullshit) executive chair with fancy cushions and swivel and such; improvements can be made at the lower price points.
Second, the visual noise is disgusting. Something more Shibui would be more conducive to the classroom environment. Something that occupies the mind with complexity without drawing attention. Elegant simplicity with infinite complexity.
What's with all this green martian space age bullshit?
What?
END THE DRUG WAR.
Already in progress. I have a submarine bill on the books (a bill that does a bunch of other stuff, and has a minor provision for this) that instigates the death penalty for anyone illegally selling drugs known to cause severe medical hazards in acute dosage or severe physical addiction. So heroin, cocaine, etc, sold to kids (as normally happens here.. hell 15 year olds often sell the shit) is instant execution.
When they're dead we win.
Ivanna Fornikova?
Maybe because in one model, you keep finding torrents you can't download because they're behind paywalls and stupid shit, and the torrents vanish eventually, or never download because of no seeds; while in the other, information actually persists and the network isn't reliant on any given operator.
I know. It's astonishing because people shifted off a "do a search and find something; it never fucking goes away" model to a "file on a network with a backing tracker that eventually disappears and the likelihood of leechers that download a torrent and then disconnect so 99% of the shit out there has no seeds." We left the model where you could always find anything ages ago.
Go no more 'stems from the concepts of life and death than chess or checkers.'
In Go, your most advantageous skill is recognizing shapes that suggest life or death. Can you make this group of stones uncapturable? Can you make a play that prevents the opponent from making a group of their stones uncapturable? If these stones are dead, you can safely ignore them; if they are alive, you don't have to worry about capture and you can leverage them. If they are unsettled, you should take action here.
In Chess or Checkers, you have no way to guarantee that even a single piece cannot be captured; you can only assure that that piece is "protected" such that if the black Queen takes your Bishop you can capture her with your Knight. In Checkers there isn't even that: pieces "guarding" other pieces become jump chains for your opponent to devastate.
Go also has a definition to it's goal. "Remove all of your opponents pieces". Go is won by defeat of your opponent. Period.
Go is won by the control of territory. A failed invasion is construed as a loss of territory: capturing a piece gains you a point, but with the alternation of play leading to ultimate capture in an invasion I would play exactly as many stones as you would in my territory to capture if played out. If I simply kill your stones and don't capture, I still retain them as prisoners after the game is over (capture dead stones), which has the same effect; in which case playing out the capture would serve to REDUCE my score. In the case of a futile run, you send me more pieces to capture while I ignore them, then play to capture, INCREASING my score.
If both players recognize the death of those stones the moment they are dead, then the net gain for both sides is zero; a struggling invader will increase his opponent's score, and an overzealous defender will reduce his own score to finish capturing.
It seems you have no idea how Go is played.
If I had to pick only one game per group, would rather see my engineers playing Go and my lawyers playing Chess.
Go is to philosophers and warriors what Chess is to merchants and accountants. (It would be more kind to say Go appeals to the philosopher in a man and Chess to the merchant in him; but less correct.) That said, I would rather see engineers and managers (generals are managers, are they not?) playing Go, and Lawyers I suppose would find more interest in Chess. You can't much help a lawyer.