Duke87

(5512) I want a cat. My girlfriend and I are probably going to get one after we move in together.

In plain English: California is raising their minimum wage. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-minimumwage-idUSKCN0WX2J8 Hasn't been signed yet but the governor is expected to. Current minimum in California is $10, the increases are gradual and don't start until next year. 2017: $10.50 2018: $11 2019: $12 2020: $13 2021: $14 2022: $15

The cynic in me says this is all hot air and we can forget about any of these people making a third party run. That said there is an intriguing and plausible scenario in which this could occur, because it would be a backdoor power play for the Republican establishment. The electoral college system of the US is oft the subject of discussion for how it can result in someone becoming president when they don't get a majority of votes or even necessarily the most votes (see: 2000). But one other quirk of it that is much less frequently discussed is how a candidate, in order to win, must secure a majority of the 538 electoral votes. In an election with only two viable candidates (which let's face it has been just about every US presidential election within the lifetime of anyone still walking around), the only way for this to not happen is for there to be a tie. But, with three candidates capable of winning electoral votes, there are much greater odds that none of them will win a majority. If this happens, the House of Representatives gets to choose which of the candidates becomes president. So consider this scenario: Trump wins a majority of delegates and is the Republican nominee. The Republican establishment chooses a more moderate candidate (can be Kaisch, or anyone they like) and runs him under a third party, thus splitting the conservative vote. At worst, the result is that the Democratic nominee becomes president. But if their third party spoiler candidate succeeds at drawing some electoral votes and denies any candidate from having a majority, then the House of Representatives, currently controlled by the Republican party, can take their spoiler candidate and make him president. Either way, it prevents Trump from getting into the White House. Unfortunately this strategy only works for the Republicans. If the losing candidate in the Democratic primaries runs under a third party, neither of them will become president since either the Republican will get a majority of electoral votes, or no one will and the Republican-controlled congress will declare the Republican to be the winner.

(5509) I see cats running around outside all the time. It's possible some of them are strays but there are definitely also plenty of people in the neighborhood who have a cat and let it run around outside. Cats that are adapted to living the feral life can be quite adept at feeding and fending for themselves. Meanwhile they aren't a threat to humans nor are they known to wreck gardens or mess other human creations up. So I can't complain about them. If anything I appreciate being able to be like "awww, cute kitty!" whenever I see one.

(5506) I spotted a cat today that looked similar to one that someone around here lost a few weeks ago. Alas, when I compared it to the photo on my phone, it was not the same cat.

(5503) Drunk people are usually annoying to have to deal with in general, though there are occasional exceptions.

And for that matter, we wouldn't have rape if not for the fact that a willingness and ability to force females to mate with you against their will is an adaptive trait from the perspective of natural selection. As humans we're self-aware and as a society try to fight this, but not every individual goes along with it. And in the animal kingdom? Ha, there are plenty of species to whom the concept of consent is absurd and all mating occurs by one partner forcibly subduing the other. The thing about nature is that it has a way of achieving balance through an equilibrium between opposing forces, creating perpetual conflicts that no one is supposed to ever win. Mutualistic relationships where both parties benefit without any appreciable conflict are the exception, not the rule.

(5500) No drug addict has ever stopped me from posting here as far as I can recall

(5497) This reminds me of one of our epic threads from back in the day: "Simtropolis Roadtrip", where the OP started talking about going on a roadtrip across the US and Canada to visit other members of the site, in a totally not serious but hilarious manner. Fun times.

Probably no one. To be guilty of inciting a riot, the individual generally must have deliberately aimed to cause violence at the time and place of their inciting actions. While Mr. Drumpf may be a loudmouth who advocates manhandling protesters, unless he starts actively telling the crowd to do violent things as they are doing them, he is not inciting a riot. Put it this way: you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, but you can absolutely get on stage and say "if we were in a crowded theater, I would yell fire, and you should too". And that's only in reference to the protester getting punched in North Carolina. The protests in Chicago can't possibly have any criminal link to Drumpf's campaign at all, since he wasn't even there! Indeed, it was probably a big strategic mistake on his part to cancel that rally. A man who runs scared from a few protesters is going to have a reeeeally hard time convincing anyone he would actually be a strong leader. Note that Drumpf won 0 out of 19 delegates from DC and 1 out of 11 delegates from Wyoming on Saturday. A small percentage of the total number of delegates still available but perhaps these results are a canary in the coalmine and people have come to their senses.

(5493) Listening to Rush is always a good idea.

(5490) Rush like Tom Sawyer. The line in my previous post is lifted from "Freewill" off the album Permanent Waves. A rather underrated Rush album, overshadowed by its successor (which contains "Tom Sawyer" and the famous "YYZ").

(5485) And remember that if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

This caught my attention but apparently it isn't what it sounds like. The school is going to stop calling the head of each dormitory a "house master"... which, yeah, I can see easily being mistaken for having connotations of slavery. They are not, as far as I can tell, going to change what they call masters degrees, or stop using the title "master of arts"/"master of science", which would just be silly. As for the school's coat of arms, meh. It's been in use for less than a quarter of the school's history. It changed before, it can change again.

This map was made by one person who happens to be a reporter for a newspaper in Maine, and thus has easy access to an audience. It's been re-reported by other major outlets, thus giving it the illusion of legitimacy. But it has little evidence given substantiating its creation and there is no academic consensus or peer review of any sort here. In other words, it's a total load of crap but people keep sharing it because they think it looks cool and aren't viewing it critically. It's no secret that there are significant cultural difference between various areas in the US, but they are far too complex and nuanced to properly show by drawing a few lines across a map, even if the cartographer bases the map on solid data rather than his own personal conjecture. Meanwhile the fact that freedom of movement has helped enforce rather than dissuade these regional divides is absolutely true - think of it as the political centrifuge effect. When given the ability to choose whether to associate with like-minded people or with unlike-minded people, individuals will tend to favor the former.

(5482) Ha. Interestingly, my girlfriend is more concerned about this subject than I am... for now at least. I suspect my priorities are in the order they are because as of this writing I can totally sympathize with the young man who wants the daughter, but not with the parents.

Moderator's note: this thread was moved from the Mapping Community forum at the OP's request

(5477) One time my father and I were clearing some brush, and suddenly he uncovered a wasp's nest among it. He yelled and ran and escaped unscathed. I got stung multiple times despite having not been the one to disturb the nest because I didn't start running as soon and ended up being the closer target.

(5473) I don't mind spiders so long as they're outside. Bees, on the other hand, freak me out no matter where they are. They sting. I don't like things that sting.

Seems to me this would be a largely symbolic move. Closing Gitmo and relocating the prisoners elsewhere would do nothing to change the fact that we're holding a bunch of people in captivity indefinitely without giving them any sort of trial. That, more than Gitmo's existence, is the real problem here. Of course, the awkwardness over jurisdiction is an obstacle. The people held there are foreign nationals who were captured on foreign soil, never formally extradited by the government of the country where they were captured, and never committed any crimes on US soil. The US thus has no authority to subject them to our civilian criminal justice system. They are, in effect, prisoners of war, except that they are civilians engaged in guerilla tactics rather than members of a foreign army, which makes holding them as prisoners of war problematic and makes subjecting them to military tribunal problematic as well. I suppose shipping them of to the ICC in Den Haag to decide what to do with them might be one option that resolves the indefinite imprisonment problem, but that only works if there is sufficient evidence available to convict them of war crimes. Presumably, for many of the prisoners, the bulk of the evidence against them is classified intel that the US isn't going to reveal in any public trial.

Bribery in the traditional sense is rare and highly frowned upon in the US, but we have plenty of classier forms of corruption all over the place. See: every industry lobbyist that gets laws written in a way that protects the interests of large companies instead of protecting the interests of the general public. I suppose it's fair to say that the system usually works as intended, but I do at times question its intentions.

So basically we'll have a new supreme court justice shortly after election day, once it can't have an impact on said elections. Typical. Controversial political moves, if they don't happen under cover of a distracting story, happen in mid-November in even numbered years.

As I understand it part of the issue here is that Apple isn't simply being asked to crack the phone, which they cannot do anymore than the FBI can. Apple is being asked to create an updated version of iOS with a deliberate security flaw that the FBI can exploit, and push the update onto this single phone (how they can do that without unlocking the phone first, I don't know. Maybe the guy had his phone set to install updates automatically). The reason Apple is refusing to cooperate is because they realize that once they create this "update" it isn't going to only get used just this once. It is going to get used over and over and become a tool that can be used for surveillance and potentially exploited by hackers. Such is the nature of encryption, there is no viable middle ground: either data is encrypted so that no one, not even the manufacturer, not even law enforcement, can get it without knowing the password - or it is not secured because if it is possible to access the data by guessing the password or bypassing the need to, then we effectively have no cybersecurity and criminal hacking groups have free reign to break in anywhere they see fit (as do governments both domestic and foreign). What also makes this case atypical is that the owner of the phone is dead. If he were alive, a search warrant would enable the FBI to make him give them the password or be charged with obstruction of justice. But he's not, so he can't talk. This also then raises the question of why they even have a warrant to search the phone. If the perp is dead, there is no need to gather evidence against him. The FBI is merely fishing for leads on any potential buddies this guy might have still out there, which seems to me to be a misuse of the concept of a search warrant since the subject of the warrant is not the subject of investigation.

Oh look... hypocrisy in Washington. Your typical politician is always going to support whatever benefits him today, even if they opposed the exact same thing previously when it didn't benefit them.

(5469) I don't have any particular fear of catching a mosquito-borne illness (it's unlikely where I live). The bites are itchy and annoying to deal with, though. And if I am unfortunate enough to have a mosquito find its way into my bedroom in the middle of the night, well, there goes my good night's sleep. At some point I will inevitably wake up and be made aware of its existence either by it buzzing in my ear or the presence of a fresh itchy bite. Then I will be unable to go back to sleep until I find it and kill it.