Rivalarrival

"Enlightening conversation" is a bit of a euphemism in my community. I'm a balloon pilot. The way we "enlighten" our aircraft is by filling them with hot air...

Really. Interesting.

I find it hard to believe you have zero direct democracy, even at local levels, but I have little reason to doubt you.

I don't trust the politician-class enough to support such a system.

Brb, working on a lava-powered gas guzzler.

No oil. Not worth the effort.

No such thing in germany.

Bullshit. You didn't understand my question. I'll rephrase and elaborate.

Not every issue is a national issue. You vote on issues in your locality that someone living across the country is not eligible to vote on. They vote on issues in their locality that you are not eligible to vote on.

For example, In my state, schools are funded at the district level through property taxes. I vote on the tax rate in my school district; someone across the state votes on the tax rate in their district. (Generally, districts and cities are at the same level, but sometimes two or more cities will combine into a single school district, so they are technically separate.).

Zoning issues are at the city level. I can vote on zoning issues in my city; I can't vote on zoning issues in another city.

We had a state-level abortion issue on my last ballot: individuals residing in other states were not eligible to vote on my state's issue.

My point is that you have similar need for registration, it's just done automatically alongside the process of getting your ID.

Generally, we register to vote in the same process as getting or renewing our ID cards. That first ID card might be a driver's license issued at 16, a learner's permit at 15, a moped license at 14. Passports and state IDs can be issued at even younger ages, but we are not eligible to vote until 18. Our first ID generally doesn't include voter registration, simply because we aren't yet eligible. People who turn 18 since the last general election will need to register separately.

Some people have dual residency. "Snowbirds" are retirees who spend their summers in a northern state, and the winters in Florida. They are only eligible to vote in one state or the other, but technically qualify to vote in either. We vote in November; these snowbirds will be in Florida at the time, and will need absentee ballots to vote in their northern elections. Absentee ballots are only issued to registered voters.

How do they know you are a citizen?

How do they know in what political division your vote should be counted?

For local referenda, how do they know what issues you are eligible to vote on?

Whatever means are in use to get you the right ballot is what you use for "registration".

Every measurement system has had its formal definition changed several times. The kilogram, for example, was once formally defined as the mass of a specific block of metal in France, which was later determined to be losing mass, and thus made a pretty terrible standard. Now, the kilogram is formally defined in terms of the meter and the Planck Constant.

Celsius was once defined by the freezing and boiling points of water, but those aren't actually constant: Fahrenheit's brine mixture is actually significantly more consistent. Kelvin's degree spacing comes from that definition of Celsius, but it it was eventually redefined to be more precise by using the triple point of water: pure water at a specific pressure and temperature where it can simultaneously exist as solid, liquid, and gas. Significantly more accurate, but not enough: Kelvin was redefined in 2019 in terms of joules, which are in turn defined by kg, m, s, which are ultimately defined in terms of the Planck constant.

Celsius is now formally defined in terms of Kelvin. Fahrenheit is also formally defined in terms of Kelvin. Fahrenheit's brine story is just a piece of trivia.

100 is the imprecise average body temperature of the developer

That's a myth. It's no more true than the myth that it was the body temperature of horses, or that the scale was designed to reflect how humans experience the weather. (It happens to reflect how humans experience the weather, but this was an incidental characteristic and not the purpose for which the scale was designed.)

The Fahrenheit scale starts to make sense when you realize he was a geometrist. It turns out that a base-10 system of angular measurement objectively sucks ass, so the developer wasn't particularly interested geometrically irrelevant numbers like "100", but in geometrically interesting numbers like "180". He put 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water. (212F - 32F = 180F)

After settling on the "width" of his degree, he measured down to a repeatable origin point, which happened to be 32 of his degrees below the freezing point of water. He wanted a dial thermometer to point straight down in ice water, straight up in boiling water, and to use the same angular degrees as a protractor.

The calibration point he chose wasn't the "freezing point" of the "random brine mixture". The brine was water, ice, and ammonium chloride, which together form a frigorific mixture due to the phase change of the water. As the mixture is cooled, it resists getting colder than 0F due to the phase change of the water to ice. As it is warmed, it resists getting warmer than 0F due to the phase change of ice to water. (Obviously, it can't maintain this relationship indefinitely. But so long as there is ice and liquid brine, the brine will maintain this temperature.) This makes it repeatable, in labs around the world.

And it wasn't a "random" brine mixture: it was the coldest and most stable frigorific mixture known to the scientific community.

This criticism of Fahrenheit is borne of simple ignorance: people don't understand how or why it was developed, and assume he was an idiot. He wasn't. He had very good reasons for his choices.

The only relevant factors I can think of are jurisdictional. You don't risk having your servers stolen by jackbooted government agents when your servers are safely beyond their physical reach.

Caption: Taylor Swift, wearing a black turtleneck, holding her dinner.

The ACA is Obama's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". It is better than what we had before it. It is the best option we could enact at the time. It is fucking disgustingly terrible, and needs to die in a goddamn fire.

Is she going to eat that cat?