Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[mansaxel]

Oh, and tax day should move from April 15th to the day immediately preceding Election Day.

Election Day should be on a Sunday or be made a public holiday (except for poll workers then ofc) so that not only the rich can vote. It is so here in Sweden, so it's a peeve I hold for the countries where the ruling classes keep ruling through make-it-harder-to-vote measures. Also: Gerrymandering

[CatalinaWOW]

Oh, and tax day should move from April 15th to the day immediately preceding Election Day.

Election Day should be on a Sunday or be made a public holiday (except for poll workers then ofc) so that not only the rich can vote. It is so here in Sweden, so it's a peeve I hold for the countries where the ruling classes keep ruling through make-it-harder-to-vote measures. Also: Gerrymandering

You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run?  Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem

[Circlotron]

Australian 5, 10 and 20 cent coins (all silver colour) have a weight that is proportional to their face value. That way you can put a mixed bag of them on the scales and find the value. Do other countries have this feature with their coins?

[IDEngineer]

Election Day should be on a Sunday or be made a public holiday (except for poll workers then ofc) so that not only the rich can vote. It is so here in Sweden, so it's a peeve I hold for the countries where the ruling classes keep ruling through make-it-harder-to-vote measures.

You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run?  Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem

It's like scheduling a wedding - you can't fit everyone's needs.

On a positive note, lots of employers here are starting to give employees time off on Election Day.

Have to say... when I was growing up this idea that poor folk were being kept from the polls wasn't an issue. My family was quite humble... Dad was a high school teacher, Mom was stay-at-home, we weren't even close to well-off, yet they made it to every election and took me with them as education. We generally went after Dad's school day was over, I remember it being dark outside. Polls are open until 8p, a full three hours after the end of the usual workday, which seems like a pretty decent window. Not trying to be insensitive, just observing that this seems like more shouting than substance.

[TimFox]

In Chicago, along with the rest of the US, elections are held on the "first Tuesday after the first Monday" of the month, which is an interesting bit of history, dating to 1845.  Prior to that, local dates varied considerably.
However, on that day the polls are open from 6 AM to 7 PM (in Illinois), and anyone in line at 7 PM must be allowed to vote.
Recently, "early voting" was added, where for a reasonable time ahead of Election Day at least 50 sites in the city are open seven days a week for in-person voting.  Although one must go to the polling place in ones precinct on Election Day, a registered voter can vote at any of the early sites (the vote cast thereby is final and it is a felony to attempt to vote again).  Before I retired, I found it convenient to use the early voting option on a weekend date.  Cook County has its own election administration, but the rules are similar.  Of course, during the last election, the existing right to vote by mail was more popular due to the pandemic.
All in all, I found this to be a reasonable accommodation to the schedule problems of working people.

[mc172]

You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run?  Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem

Not sure what era you live in but the buses run pretty reliably and frequently on Sundays in the century that I live in.

[TimFox]

You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run?  Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem

Not sure what era you live in but the buses run pretty reliably and frequently on Sundays in the century that I live in.

Not a question of era, but location.  In Chicago (a large city) the bus schedule is sparser than on weekdays, but there are other municipalities in the US with literally zero public bus service on Sundays.  For example, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa have bus service only Monday to Saturday.  (Total population roughly 110,000)

[james_s]

Not a question of era, but location.  In Chicago (a large city) the bus schedule is sparser than on weekdays, but there are other municipalities in the US with literally zero public bus service on Sundays.  For example, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa have bus service only Monday to Saturday.  (Total population roughly 110,000)

This is certainly a solvable problem. There is nothing to stop them from implementing a special election day schedule for the buses, they could even make it a ride for free day. This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work as if it is some insurmountable hurdle and the whole idea must be scrapped.

[james_s]

Yes, unfortunately, as with many things in life, people's emotions get in the way of doing what makes sense.

If they did reduce the numbers minted drastically, it would make the collectors go crazy gobbling up all they could, and none would be in circulation long.

That's kind of the point. We don't need them in circulation, they are essentially worthless, they should be gradually phased out and then at some point most of the people who still feel particularly nostalgic about them will be gone and eventually they can go out of production. Then they'll just be like any other obsolete coin.

[IDEngineer]

This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work as if it is some insurmountable hurdle and the whole idea must be scrapped.

...while they ignore the edge cases that argue against the status quo. This ends up being "we can't change it" and we're stuck with mediocrity.

On the macro level, I often wonder if all politics devolves to CYA (Cover Your A$$). Nobody dares do anything meaningful because if there's the least chance it could go wrong, that will be used against them politically, forever. So the safest thing is to champion the status quo and make only meaningless changes around the edges to give the appearance of "doing something" while taking the least risk possible.

I'll share another semi-related tidbit: The political definition of recidivism is "reelection".

[CatalinaWOW]

You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run?  Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem

Not sure what era you live in but the buses run pretty reliably and frequently on Sundays in the century that I live in.

Well I actually live in the country under discussion, and in the area I live bus service is reduced on Saturday and nonexistent on Sunday.  Other places I have lived did have Sunday service, but much reduced.  Once an hour or so.  So a solution that seems perfectly obvious and reasonable to you at your location has a totally opposite effect somewhere else. 

 It turns out that in many areas in this country there are not enough bus riders to pay the bills.    Most folks drive themselves, ride share or work from home.   For fairly obvious reasons.  In my case every time I have checked public transit it involved multiple hours per day of additional travel time and exposure to inclement weather.  The only ones riding them are those who supposedly don't have the means to get to polling places on workdays. 

When given the choice of having service on workdays or weekends those riding buses choose workdays (surprise, surprise).  And when given a choice of higher fares or reduced service on weekends the choice is lower fares.  Maybe a small surprise.  And the general population which is supplementing (usually to the extent of roughly two thirds of operating costs) are asked to pay still more for that weekend service they decline.  Not so big a surprise.

Of course where I live we have 100 percent vote by mail so all of that is pretty much a non issue, and didn't require changing the voting day or any of a number of other complaints about the difficulty of voting.  To prevent any arguments about the cost of a stamp being too much to pay for the privilege of voting the mail in ballot is pre-paid postage.  It does require that the person trying to vote has a place to receive mail so they can get their ballot and the information booklet in case they can't get information on candidates any other way.  Which does make it tough on the portion of the homeless population that is so out of it that they can't receive welfare checks.  Addresses as vague as "Under the bridge at 12th street and Champion have been sufficient, but there are still those valuable voters that can't achieve this.  And there are still complaints of disenfranchisement.

In most cases the claims of voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement in this country are politically driven, with most problems poorly supported by facts.  One the other hand, when a couple of dozen votes are the difference between winning and losing an election both sides fight like rabid dogs over each and every vote.  The problem isn't with the voting, it is the fact that a tiny bit of noise in the system can cause a binary change in outcome.

[PlainName]

This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work

I would normally agree with you, but...

This is certainly a solvable problem. There is nothing to stop them from implementing a special election day schedule for the buses

As a foreign observer it seems to me the Republicans are doing their utmost to make it NOT work, and actively throwing stuff in the way to make it harder. So it's not really a solvable problem if the best you can hope for is the status quo.

Of course, I realise that this only applies to some states, and that we get second-hand and biased new over here, but if it's anywhere near accurate for even one state it's quite worrying.

[TimFox]

Not a question of era, but location.  In Chicago (a large city) the bus schedule is sparser than on weekdays, but there are other municipalities in the US with literally zero public bus service on Sundays.  For example, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa have bus service only Monday to Saturday.  (Total population roughly 110,000)

This is certainly a solvable problem. There is nothing to stop them from implementing a special election day schedule for the buses, they could even make it a ride for free day. This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work as if it is some insurmountable hurdle and the whole idea must be scrapped.

Of course this problem could be solved by improving public transportation on Election Day.  However, it is now worse in many places than it was in a previous century.

[james_s]

As a foreign observer it seems to me the Republicans are doing their utmost to make it NOT work, and actively throwing stuff in the way to make it harder. So it's not really a solvable problem if the best you can hope for is the status quo.

Of course, I realise that this only applies to some states, and that we get second-hand and biased new over here, but if it's anywhere near accurate for even one state it's quite worrying.

I have not followed it all that closely but one thing I do know is that there are a lot of people making mountains out of mole hills, getting emotional and spreading misinformation about one thing or another and neither side is innocent here. The media is especially bad, they latch onto things and parrot this and that, I've been surprised more than once when I read through a proposed bit of legislation and found that it did not even do most of what people were claiming it did. I would encourage you to take the hearsay and fever-pitched news articles with a grain of salt and read the actual legislation/science/data before forming an opinion if it's something you are the least bit curious about.

[mansaxel]

This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work as if it is some insurmountable hurdle and the whole idea must be scrapped.

...while they ignore the edge cases that argue against the status quo. This ends up being "we can't change it" and we're stuck with mediocrity.

On the macro level, I often wonder if all politics devolves to CYA (Cover Your A$$). Nobody dares do anything meaningful because if there's the least chance it could go wrong, that will be used against them politically, forever. So the safest thing is to champion the status quo and make only meaningless changes around the edges to give the appearance of "doing something" while taking the least risk possible.

I'll share another semi-related tidbit: The political definition of recidivism is "reelection".

The degenerate form is called "conservatism" 

[mansaxel]

The problem isn't with the voting, it is the fact that a tiny bit of noise in the system can cause a binary change in outcome.

This. "Winner-takes-all" districts are, IMNSHO, a horrible thing.

In Sweden, we have a proportional system where each party gets its share of the votes from each district. This then is aggregated to what in the end is a city/county/country -wide result (we vote for town (Kommun), county, (Län/Region) and country-wide (Riksdag), all at the same time, using the same proportional system). Any party that gets 4% of the votes in the country, aggregated, will get seats in the parliament. 

It's got its warts, and we have fascists in our parliament too. The last government crisis took some soul-searching by all parties, but was solved. Let's see what the budget process this autumn brings.

[armandine2]

not sure why but I'm put off the youtube uploads that omit the "talking head" - somehow they lose their credibility and the substitute backing track is often irritating.

The PeakTech link is a good example - as some assurance may help the would be tester here - the likes to dislikes ratio is quite low.

[armandine2]

more authoritative?

[PlainName]

more authoritative?

No. You are probably influenced by the text effects, which might be the video equivalent of, ah, personal websites with marquee banners.

The Peak one is preferable simply because you can easily fast wind to whatever info you need. Pause it and there the info is on-screen all the time. With the second you tediously skip back and forth to find the bit you half remember and then put it on loop if you can't take it all in at once. The first also allows judicious screencaps to capture the essence for posterity.

[armandine2]

I don't think I would fast wind such a short piece as in a few views you would soon learn what was what, here.

On a wider level I suspect that the first video is the contemporary popular (familiar) explanation style and the plain Fluke video, with the mature talking head (hidden) voice, is now less appealing. The Fluke has more dislikes than I thought it would've gotten - perhaps those people wanted to see another application.

[SkyMaster]

...

For a long time in America televisions were generally known as "tubes", even though it was understood that "tubes" were also the functional components within the device.

Youtube came out in 2005... and refer to the "tube".

 

[TimFox]

TVs were called that because of the cathode-ray tube (CRT) found in all TV sets until flat screens replaced them.

[james_s]

Yeah it made perfect sense at the time. Most people referred to TV CRTs as "picture tubes" and "the tube" is the part you're looking at when you watch TV. To the average layman the "tube" is essentially the entire TV, they are only vaguely aware that there is anything else in the box. About 90% of the time when a TV failed such that it wouldn't power up I'd hear "the tube blew", people just have no clue. Prior to the flatscreen era I very frequently heard people referring to the TV set as "the tube" or "boob tube" the latter in reference to the proliferation of stupid content catering to the lowest common denominator.

[mansaxel]

Today I'm peeved about the user-hostile practice of significant whitespace. Python and YAML, I'm looking at you. What were they thinking?

[Bassman59]

Today I'm peeved about the user-hostile practice of significant whitespace. Python and YAML, I'm looking at you. What were they thinking?

Or all news sites (even the big ones like The NY Times and the Washington Post) with their narrow columns of text that remain the same size regardless of how you resize your browser window.

Or all of the forums that have migrated to software that does that too.

Sheeesh.