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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 18th, 2023

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  • I used to play a LAN game. Run around exploring a dungeon, find treasures, weapons, etc. and use them to whack on other players. One of the things you could find was a magic feather that let you walk through walls when wielded. Useful but not too powerful since it was expended with use. After about 15 minutes, if nobody had won, the game went into Armageddon mode by teleporting everyone to a small hostile room to cage match until only one survived. So I used the feather then and hopped into the wall. I could still hit and be hit by adjacent players, but was immune from all the environmental hazards that only existed inside the room.

    Next game we played had a house rule to not do that anymore.



  • Political speech has stronger 1A protection than commercial speech and one could argue for a ‘fair use’ exemption. Strong enough to win on its merits? I don’t know – I’m not an IP lawyer, probably not. Strong enough that a well-funded legal team could get a federal judge, hesitant to make a ruling certain to be criticized as ‘election interference,’ to delay a decision until after the election when the signs are all being taken down anyway? I think so.


  • Historically, the EC protected the women’s suffrage movement. In a straight NPV, you couldn’t allow progressive states like Wyoming to just double their electoral influence by letting women vote until conservative states like Massachusetts are ready to do the same.

    Maybe the modern equivalent is ranked choice voting reforms. Under EC, it’s no problem for Maine to choose electors by IRV, and if other states see it working, they might follow. Under a NPV, or even the NPVIC, they’d be forced to revert to a plurality system so their votes could be added to the national total.





  • I used to live in Ohio, and had three presidential candidates visit close enough to conveniently get to. I went to the Edwards, Obama (primary season), and Romney events. I didn’t order advance tickets for any of them. Both Democrats had volunteers outside the security trying to get everyone who showed up with or without tickets through security and into the main venue. At Romney’s I didn’t get in and just loitered around the outside fencing. That might have been the better experience – I could still hear the speeches, and the outside crowd had better signs and more colorful commentary than the inside ones.












  • It’s hard to predict this in advance, since it’s sensitive to things like voter turnout in non-competitive states. For instance, a blizzard in New England could affect the popular vote without impacting the electoral college vote. So I’ll just tell you how to calculate it.

    First, identify the tipping point state. Some guys think it might be Michigan this year. Meaning either candidate can win by winning Michigan and every state more favorable to them than Michigan. Other good guesses are Pennsylvania and maybe Arizona. Then take the difference between a candidate’s margin in Michigan verses their national average.

    2020: The tipping point state was Wisconsin. Biden won WI by 0.6% and nationally by 4.5% representing a 3.9% electoral college advantage to the Republican.

    2012: The tipping point state was Colorado. Obama won CO by 5.4% and nationally by 3.9% representing a 1.5% electoral college advantage to the Democrat.

    So the electoral college doesn’t intrinsically benefit the Republicans, but it probably will this year.