The Trouble with the Electoral College
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPR
    ProfessorScience
    2w ago 100%

    The solution is for states to allocate delegates proportionally. That is in the best interest of each state, so it’s not fragile. It can be accomplished one state at a time, so it’s logistically easier.

    Isn't this overlooking that each state that does this, especially swing states, does it at their own disadvantage? States that allocate their electoral votes all-or-nothing have more sway over politicians who receive those votes (because the politicians are, in turn, are incentivized to spend their effort on states where the return on that effort is larger, and an effort that wins you 5% of the vote in an all-or-nothing swing state could win you the whole state's worth of electoral votes, compared to 5% of electoral votes in a proportionally allocated state).

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  • To Americans: How far apart is everything in the US?
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPR
    ProfessorScience
    4w ago 100%

    I live in the suburbs of a decently sized but not super large city in WI.

    • Convenience store: 120 m
    • Chain supermarket: 2.6 km
    • Bus stop: 5 m
    • Park: 450 m
    • Big supermarket: 3.1km
    • Library: 1.5 km
    • Train station: 58.9 km :(
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  • Why is there so much hype around artificial intelligence?
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPR
    ProfessorScience
    2mo ago 100%

    When ChatGPT first started to make waves, it was a significant step forward in the ability for AIs to sound like a person. There were new techniques being used to train language models, and it was unclear what the upper limits of these techniques were in terms of how "smart" of an AI they could produce. It may seem overly optimistic in retrospect, but at the time it was not that crazy to wonder whether the tools were on a direct path toward general AI. And so a lot of projects started up, both to leverage the tools as they actually were, and to leverage the speculated potential of what the tools might soon become.

    Now we've gotten a better sense of what the limitations of these tools actually are. What the upper limits of where these techniques might lead are. But a lot of momentum remains. Projects that started up when the limits were unknown don't just have the plug pulled the minute it seems like expectations aren't matching reality. I mean, maybe some do. But most of the projects try to make the best of the tools as they are to keep the promises they made, for better or worse. And of course new ideas keep coming and new entrepreneurs want a piece of the pie.

    4
  • Sound cutoff issues
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPR
    ProfessorScience
    2mo ago 100%

    That does seem to at least help. It seems to be harder to trigger the problems with higher values. I could still get it to happen with the quant at 2048, but I had to really work at it.

    I notice that the + Firefox line seems to show up with a quant of 900 even when the minimum value is higher than that? That seems weird.

    3
  • Hello! I'm pretty new to pop_os and linux, but am trying to switch over from windows. I've been having some sound issues where it seems like sounds get cut off. It seems to most noticeable with something like doing duolingo from my browser (lots of short sound clips of words and such; if I click on words quickly, then spotify playing in the background will stop playing briefly). I've tried disabling sleep, as described by https://support.system76.com/articles/audio/, without luck. I've also noticed that I [see errors](https://imgur.com/a/vtrU5Yg) listed in pw-top which sometimes correspond to sounds getting cut off. That is, sometimes I notice a cutoff without seeing an increase in the number of errors, but when I notice an increase in the number of errors it usually corresponds to something getting cut off. Is there a way to see what the errors from pw-top are? Or suggestions for other things I should look into? I've looked at dmesg and `systemctl status --user pipewire.service` (and pipewire-pulse) but the only error I see is a nvidia-drm thing which [seems to be innocuous](https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/ubuntu-21-10-failed-to-grab-modeset-ownership-with-495-44/193867/37). I've also uploaded [my alsa-info results](http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=40bbff34ac448419f1c6c4ade06b28597ad078d1), if that's useful.

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    Should the Harris campaign co-opt this t-shirt?
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPR
    ProfessorScience
    3mo ago 100%

    "Don't elect the other guy" campaigning is strongly incentivized by first past the post voting, unfortunately. Not that that's the sole cause, but... it's certainly not helping.

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  • What's an unusual but excellent food combo you've tried?
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPR
    ProfessorScience
    5mo ago 100%

    I had a cherry chutney hamburger at a restaurant somewhere in Missouri. I ordered it because I thought it was a weird combo. IT WAS DELICIOUS.

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  • news
    News 5mo ago
    Jump
    NTSB releases report on Baltimore bridge collapse
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPR
    ProfessorScience
    5mo ago 100%

    S'pose that's fair. It does seem odd that the report would say the generator was "not configured" to power the ship, rather than not capable of it.

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