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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • With NC Called for Trump tonight, its time for us all to take a rest and sleep. NC was the early decision point. We all expected it to go Trump, but if it went Kamala then Trump basically lost.

    Now that Trump is confirmed to win NC, its a long road until PA is called. And Kamala needs to win PA, MI, and WI all together. No point stressing about it now, just sleep and you’ll know tomorrow morning for two of those three. And wait until Friday before PA is called (or later, if its really really close).

    Staying up a bit longer to see how AZ goes is interesting but likely not too important anymore.


  • Republican counties, with their fewer number of citizens, always report first. Rural areas are easier to count. Democrat counties, which tend to be urban, have far larger numbers and report later.

    The trend doesn’t matter on election day. Republicans always get the first wave, then Democrats catch up later. The question is how many urban areas are remaining in each state?

    Answer: Lots for VA and NC. That’s why AP hasn’t called. Ignore the websites or newspapers that try to give you truth before the urban centers (with massive populations) dramatically shift the vote around.





  • For reference: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/10307

    ©False information in registering or voting; penalties Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both: Provided, however, That this provision shall be applicable only to general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.





  • It probably should be noted that history gets really fucky before the Iron Age.

    Bronze age collapse means that most of the writing and tradition before the year 1000BCE has been lost. Furthermore, the concept of history itself was only invented in 500BCE or so by Herodotus. So the fragments of ‘history’ found before that time is basically religion.

    The problem with Religion in trying to understand earlier stuff is that it’s filled with myth and mythology. We can say that a city exploded some time in that period (Given the Hebrew story of Soddom and Gamora) , which other religions at the time concur with. But the exact means at which that happened is lost to time


    Asking about Bronze Age tactics is almost as relevant to asking a Dinosaur expert what color the dinos were.

    No Bronze Age expert has any idea how tactics back then worked. All we have are a bunch of old armor and old weapons. We don’t know their organization, their supply lines, their capabilities or philosophies. People probably killed each other and had wars but we don’t know how.

    The period between 4000BCE and 1000BCE is extremely mysterious. To the point that the few documents we find we don’t even know how to read. So even if someone invented history at that time, we won’t know how to read it today.



  • We know that Twitter and Facebook interfered in the election by suppressing documents and information that would have hurt Joe Biden — think Hunter Biden’s laptop, the lack of scientific basis for COVID-19 restrictions and everything in between. It isn’t really a stretch to think that Republican speech was being suppressed in other ways across social media platforms.

    But there has been a profound change in social media since the last presidential election. Elon Musk, a strong proponent of free speech, took control of Twitter/X in 2022, and as for Facebook, the discovery of its cover-ups most certainly has put a much harsher spotlight on it this time around.

    What the fuck is this drivel?



  • The Jubilee is a time of celebration for Catholics.

    Traditionally, the Jubilee is held every 25 or 50 years and is a time to celebrate progress, free slaves (back when slaves were legal), forgive sins, etc etc.

    In a great celebration, it makes sense to add a bit of pop culture flair. It’s also common to focus on children and youth outreach during the Jubilee and an anime character does a lot for that.


    As for Luce herself. The Jubilee is also a time of great pilgrimages. It’s recommended to get your 'once in a lifetime’s visits to Vatican City (or other local holy sites: Santiago de Compostela, Fatima, Guadalupe). As such, Luce is modeled after the image of Pilgrims: Pilgrim staff, raincoat and dirty boots.

    Her eyes are of the seashell, a Catholic sign for pilgrims. The seashells guide pilgrims to holy sites (if you’ve ever been on the Camino, all the next locations are marked with Seashells).

    I’m expecting that Luce (thanks to the seashell eyes) will count as an official signpost for the next year of pilgrimages. She’s got incredibly well thought out symbology here.


    Edit: I should also note that the raincoat has the 2025 Jubilee of Hope flag on it.

    In case you didn’t get what that green spot on the raincoat was.






  • The #1 pain point for pollsters is the prediction of the election demographics.

    Polls and statistics are such that a general simple random sample has too little power / weak error bounds (I’m talking like +/-10%, nearly useless).

    The easiest way to improve your error bounds is to make assumptions about the electorate makeup. IE: if you know the election will be 50% male and 50% female, you can poll 50 men and 50 women (rather than 100 random people, which might end up as 60 men and 40 women due to randomness).

    Lather rinse repeat for other groupings (Latino, Asians, black, 18Y olds, 55Y olds, Rural, Urban, etc. etc.) and you get the gist of how this all works.

    Alas: the male / female vote this year is completely worked because abortion is on the ballot. All pollsters know this. Their numbers are crap because the methodology is crap this year. It’s impossible to predict women turnout.