Saturday, December 31, 2016

ID

A question was raised earlier about if I have ID

The official and legal answer, is no.

The unofficial answer, is yes.

Here in Ontario we get things called "health cards".
Looks like this. Has your name and a picture.

I use it for "ID" just about any place that wants "ID"

There's a problem with this.
The government really does not like people doing that.

In fact, the government has specific regulations/laws that say that nobody HAS to take a health card as ID. The only people who do are OHIP, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. When you go to the doctors, they swipe your card, and the government pays.



I also have a birth certificate.
On the back it says "LAMINATION VOIDS THIS CERTIFICATE"
My mother laminated it in 1985

Again, most places don't care.



The problem is most is not enough.

The government's voter ID laws were written to allow people like me to vote. My ODSP (social assistance) stub (for my payment) has my address on it. So, my ODSP stub and my OHIP card, combined, were accepted, and I voted.


The problem I've had is with the bank.

The government decided to increase the requirements to open a bank account, and they require 2 pieces of valid ID. I don't have that.

As such, I was expected to talk for 2 hours to the nearest branch to withdraw my social assistance money.

Fortunately, my bank card from that bank (which did not work) IS acceptable ID for some reason, and so, my current bank account works fine.



So, you may be asking
why don't you just get "valid ID"



Here's why



To get that I need to get it from the government
The government is the only one who has a problem with my birth certificate
That means I need a new one.

I have both ADHD and Aspergers, and the paperwork for birth certificates has a unique ability to send me into a panic.

The best part is that for it to be accepted, you need a "guarantor"
This is a person like a doctor or a lawyer, etc, that you've known for 2 years.
Might not sound like much, but I moved 18 months ago.
I don't have any qualifying persons who I've known for 2 years.
Even with all the money, I simply CAN NOT get a valid ID.

So
We wait
Lets presume I do make it to the point where I can get one.
Well my guarantor would be my doctor.
Doctors can charge for signing any paper. That means my doctor can charge me money just to sign on the dotted line. Normally this is waived, but it can be as much as $60

Then I need to apply for a birth certificate. This can cost as much as $60

Once I get one, I need to use it to apply for ID. That's $70

When you live on $1100 a month, $200 for an ID is not something to laugh at. Especially when rent,


Additionally, while $70 will get me a non-drivers licence ID that is just as valid as a drivers lic, I need a drivers licence, as my father is getting too old to drive. This means I'll also need to pay for whatever to get that process over with.



So
To answer the question, no, I don't have an ID, and getting one is not a simple thing especially when I'd need to spend half my money on the process.

when is new years?

all times local to me

4am - Line Islands
6am - New Zealand
8am - Sydney
10am - Japan
11am - Hong Kong
1:30pm - India
4pm - Moscow
7pm - UK
9pm - Brazil
New Years - Here
3am - California
5am - Hawaii
7am - Baker Island

Thursday, December 29, 2016

RULES

The rules for this channel are:

There aren't any.

Don't interpret that to mean that you are encouraged to be a dick. If you are an asshole, you are an asshole, the rules don't fucking care if you are an asshole, nor do they encourage you to be an asshole. Being a fucking cunt is unrelated to the rules. If you are a fucking cunt, that's your problem.


(note as well that channel rules and synIRC rules are unrelated; this channel is on synIRC, and as such, you have to follow synIRC rules. If you have a problem with those rules, take it up with synIRC.)

Monday, December 26, 2016

congrats to hrc

for winning the election with 2,865,075 votes (or more)

That's more votes than were cast in any US Presidential election prior to 1828
(which is 1,407,552 FTR)

So she beat George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams combined!!

She also beat...

Andrew Jackson from 1828; who took only 642,553 votes
Andrew Jackson from 1832; with 701,780 votes
Van Buren, in 1836; with 764,176
Harrison, 1840; 1,275,390
Polk, 1844; 1,339,494
Taylor, 1848; 1,363,393
Pierce, 1852; 1,607,510
Buchanan, 1856; 1,836,072
Lincoln, 1860; 1,865,908
and
Lincoln, 1864; 2,218,388

HRC didn't win by a larger margin than Grant, however, who took 3,013,421 votes.


However, her margin of victory was WAY larger than Tilden won over Hayes in 1876, when he won by a mere ~250,000 votes


Of course Tilden did beat Hayes by 3%, whereas Clinton only beat Trump by 2%

but who is counting percentage points when we can count raw ballots! I mean the raw ballots make it clear that George Washington was the least popular president EVER.

Just a reminder

In the context of my budget, and other stuff, that I suffer from:

Depression
Aspergers / Autism
"ADHD Symptoms"
"Many symptoms from OCD"
and Dysgraphia

all officially doctor diagnosed, paperwork and all.


Food and Internet is how I combat my depression. Those things will not be cut (from my budget). I'd rather be homeless.

Friday, December 23, 2016

electoral votes

305 VICE Mike Pence (R)
304 PREZ Donald Trump (R)
227 PREZ Hillary Clinton (D)
227 VICE Tim Kaine (D)
003 PREZ Colin Powell (R)
002 VICE Elizabeth Warren (D)
001 PREZ Bernie Sanders (I)
001 PREZ John Kaisch (R)
001 PREZ Ron Paul (L)
001 PREZ Faith Spotted Eagle (I)
001 VICE Susan Collins (R)
001 VICE Maria Cantwell (D)
001 VICE Carly Fiorina (R)
001 VICE Winona LaDuke (G)

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

banzored

So some idiot got banned.

When they banned him they listed 2 reasons; the first of which sounded good enough to re-ban this person to me on it's own.

The second was "because you've been around long enough that you should know X"



I literally worked with a guy who was fired because of that argument once.
That he should know X because he's been around "long enough"
Not only he did not know, nobody else I worked with knew, including me, or people around longer.



I really don't give a fuck about the guy who was banzored, in fact, I don't understand why they unbanned him in the first place.



I just don't want to end up banned myself because somebody thinks I know something I do not know.

Monday, December 19, 2016

Proposal

Forum spam tends to happen between 3am and 6am eastern from what I can see when few to no admins are online.

I propose you do not hire more admins who are awake at this time.

Rather
I propose you hire a "moderator" or two.


Specifically my proposal is as follows


Create, within the hidden admin forum, a subforum, called "trash"

Create a new usergroup called "Moderators".

Moderators would have only one power that players don't have. The ability to move topics.

Moderators would be told that if they ever move a topic to a forum that is not the "trash" forum, that they'll fired. Well. Maybe not that harsh, but you get what I'm saying; moderators are for one purpose and one purpose alone, moving topics to the trash forum. I'm sure if they move a topic someone honestly posted in the wrong place to the right place it won't be seen as come kind of coup d'etat

Moderators would not be able to see the admin forum. They'd know it exists, and what name it has because that would appear in the menu when they choose where to move things, but they wouldn't be able to enter the admin forum.

When a moderator finds forum spam, their duty is to move it to the trash forum.
That's all
An admin can delete it later.


I also nominate edventure and grumpchkin as moderators as they are 2 of the 3 people who most often find forum spam and the 3rd is not a mentor.

Saturday, December 17, 2016

FUCKINGBSHIT

JEUSHC FUCKING CHRIST WHY I MEAN FUCKING i WENT FIRST OKAY SO LIKE IW ENT OUT FO YM FUCKGUIN FUCKUIGN FUCKING WAYS FHOEOUS JERUS SCHRIST FUCKING TO GO FIRSBNT AND HE FSCREWSS ME VOER AND AGAIN JUSB TKULE LIKE THE SLAS TMFA EM UI PLAYE DIWHT SIM AND THEN I WAS THE FUCKING EMCEMXNE EMINISTER AND OF ALL OF BRAZIL RIGHT AND FU KING AND HTING WAS THNIOHTING TO DO ANY ALL AND FUCKING UIG TOS CREWDC OVER SO HARD AND FUCKING JESUS FUCKING CHRIST AND NOW AND WNO AND WJUST SJUESUS AND GET THIS GET THIS OKAY NOW FUCKING SO I GO FIRST AND JESUS FUCK AND MY FIGHT AND FUCKING ISNT EVEN INCLUDED JESUYS FUCKIN RSCISMT FUCK AND IJNCD TENV EKNOW WYHTCING WHAT TGZDOJF ANSDI AND A FLUIJHCKE ALJDBN  ACUIYHD AND F U C K I N G W O N G OC FOCUSE FJSUYHS ANCIB D VHNSEIDF  AND ANDWEI F D FU KIN AD NIIA DRN WSHIT SNIABD SMNCVIOJHG ANJHBD W JESUS CHRIST NHNABD FUCKN JUXT FIX IT MAND FIX IT FIX IT

"mistletoe is rape"

"mistletoe is rape"

us party thing I'm working on for the real blog

In 1840 a new party, the Liberty Party, started. They were anti-slavery
By 1848 they had become the Free Soil Party
starting after the mexican-american war, the Whigs started to lose support in slave states.
in 1854 everything went to hell due to the kansas-nebraska act.
Whigs lost all reps in slave states, with many pro-slave whigs joining the American or Know Nothing party, which was anti-immigrant.
Free-Soilers joined with two new parties, the Republicans and Anti-Nebraska Parties, under the Anti-Nebraska umbrella.
Anti-Nebraska and Whig parties joined to form the "Opposition"
This would later morph into the Republican Party.
By 1858, southern Whigs, unhappy with the Republicans, as well as southern Know Nothings, formed the Constituional Union Party.
This party would later merge with the Republicans.
Starting in 1860, was the Civil War

1854 really saw things go to hell too.
In 1852 the Senate had 34 Democrats, 20 Whigs, 2 Free Soilers, and 1 Know Nothing.
When congress was sworn in after the 1854 elections, there were 36 Democrats, 9 Whigs, 9 Republicans, 2 Free Soilers, and 2 Know Nothings.
By the swearing in of the congress after the 1856 elections, the Democrats had 37 Senators, the Republicans 20, and the Know Nothings 4.

Friday, December 16, 2016

senate reform (part 1)

provinces generally get the same number of seats as all other provinces, but, Canada has some massive imbalances.

Consider that California, the largest US state, has 12.18% of the population, while Ontario has 38% of the Canadian population.

Consider as well that Canada has 10 provinces, while the USA has 50 states. If you take the smallest 5 states, their total population is 1.11% of the total US population, which would be roughly 400K as a share of the Canadian population, and this is after you purposefully pick the smallest states from all around the nation, to make the smallest number possible.

As such, any province with over 8 million people, would be considered a "large" province.
And province with under 400,000 people, would be considered a "small" province.

Small provinces have half the standard number of Senators, while large provinces have 4 times the number of standard senators.



The standard number of Senators will become 12. 2 of those Senators would "Federal" and 10 would be "Provincial".
"Small" provinces have numbers of 6, 1, and 5; "Large" provinces have numbers of 48, 8, and 40.



Senators are chosen during "Senator Selections"

which I'll post about in the next post

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

let the record state that drsingh is awesome

let the record state that drsingh is awesome

The Teddy Budget

http://imgur.com/gallery/EGTVK

I've tried many methods but I've found one that works for me.


I get $1100 a month.
It goes into my bank account.
Of that, $535 is taken off automatically for rent. This number will increase 2% a year or so without any input from me.

Beyond this, $80 is paid towards an old debt (in short, I went a few months without paying rent and didn't end up homeless, so, I'm repaying that)
Beyond this, $60 is paid towards my internet.

My heating, electricity, water, etc, is all included within my rent. Before you think that's an amazing deal, keep in mind that my apartment is roughly 11 square meters in size. This compares to a city bus which is 30 square meters in size.

Anyway

After that I leave $10 in. Some of that is for bank fees. Some of that is for my Skype which I use as my phone. Some of that is for my Patreon donations to people who create hours of content I enjoy.

this leaves me with $415 "cash"

This "cash" goes on "everything else"

The ideal breakdown is as follows:

$10 a day for food, and $115 for whatever else.

The functional breakdown in terms of how it actually works, is as follows.


I put a $5 bill into about 30 envelopes/pouches. Each of these 30 pouches has a number written on it corresponding to a day of the month. On that day, I take out the money that's in the pouch and that's the money for the day.

Normally I don't take out future day monies, but I can if, for example, I'm going shopping for a weeks worth of food, or, an unexpected emergency hit.

The remaining $265 is spend in various ways.

Most of it simply gets held back and carried over. I'll frequently shove a $10 in every second pouch, or even throw a $20 into every sunday pouch. Normally though I use it to boost my food spending for foods that cost more than $5 a day to eat.

Of this $415 I'd estimate, in an average month...


$20 gets spent on video games
$10 gets spent on medicine
$15 gets spent on alcohol
$15 on care supplies (mouthwash, toilet paper, and so on)

which only totals $60


There's always some rounding

So that means outside of the $5 pouches, for food, the above noted items, and the stuff at the top of this post, that I have about $200 in cash to spend on "whatever"


At this time, that entire $200 goes towards food, which I view as a combo of food and entertainment. This means I can get some fast food, or some more expensive junk food, or items at the store that are not on sale.

Friday, December 9, 2016

Holy Book

THE BOOK OF UNDERSTANDING


1.1
Understand that you can never understand God.

1.2
Understand that you don't need to understand God.

1.3
Understand that you only need to understand that God is so beyond you, that God is unable to fathom.

1.4
God is not a person. God is not a thing. God can not be understood.

1.5
God is beyond us. God is beyond our universe. God is beyond everything. God is beyond.

1.6



...work in progress

Monday, December 5, 2016

Sunday, December 4, 2016

life changing moments

I think I just had one of those.
like a good one.

March 13th 2068

Borealia, Part 2.5

Just for Aesculus


Teddy was born when I was
Also
He won his first election in 2003 when he was 18.

Upon doing so he told his new party leader his dream was "To be Interim leader. You know the guy who rights the ship. I don't want to be the full-time leader, I'd probably fuck it up, but I'd love to be the guy that everyone turns to and says 'we need a stable hand at the wheel, we want you'. I want to be that stable hand"

Teddy said the same thing to the next leader, and to everyone in caucus.

Teddy told everyone that "I want people to think of me as the boring, grey, administrator. Someone who pushes papers and keeps the wheels turning without ever rocking the boat"


After a decade of this, people realized he wasn't lying, and this is actually what he wanted.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Borealia, Part 2

One of the most important people after the war would be Teddy Boragina.

This is a summary of prime ministers of Borealia.

____-2015 - William Carverdale (lost election)
2015-2016 - John Bolton (mental breakdown)
2016 intrm - Teddy Boragina (interim)
2016-2022 - Lia Mondale (died in office)
2022 intrm - Teddy Boragina (interim)
2022-2023 - Henry Tyler (lost election)
2023-2029 - Sarah Kensington (ousted by party)
2029 intrm - Teddy Boragina (known as 'the caretaker government')
2029-2032 - Paul K. O'Reilly (lost election)
2032 intrm - Teddy Boragina (party leader failed to win seat)
2032-2033 - Elizabeth Harland (1 week "christmas government"; election contested, ousted)
2033 intrm - Teddy Boragina (interim)
2033-2042 - Liam Markham (assassinated)
2042 intrm - Teddy Boragina (interim)
2042-2049 - Richard Farthing (lost election)
2049-2056 - Teddy Boragina (national unity coalition)

"Unity Bill" - national referendum on new constitution passes very narrowly.
Position of Prime Minister abolished. Position of President introduced.

2056 Kimberly Haddad (assassinated prior to taking office but after election)
2056 Teddy Boragina (elected as Vice President)

"Teddy Bill" - national referendum on new constitution passes by landslide.
Position of President abolished. Position of Emperor established. Constitutional Monarch.

2056-present - Theodore I

Position of Prime Minister re-established

2056-2063 - Martha Yu
2063-present - Padmaja Raksha 

Borealia, Part 1

The world keeps spinning. 
This is a world very much like our own, but, somehow different. Great Albion used to rule, but now there are two major superpowers. It would not last.

On July 2nd, 2015, The Volkshaus Compact and the Allied Provinces of Johannia have a nuclear war.

The world ends.


Mostly

It's unknown exactly what happens next, but biological weapons were used, en masse. Additionally, attempts were made to spread these, and most were successful. Only one country was able to fight off.

Borealia


A federation of former Albion colonies, is now the only country in the world that remains.

It's big
these are scale comparisons between Borealia and some places in our reality.


Starting in part 2, we will follow the development of the country and see how this all plays out.

Friday, December 2, 2016

party time

excellent


December 19th join me in a big party to celebrate the electoral college voting.

also join me for the next 4 years as I celebrate the same thing on the same day till the next election!

Thursday, December 1, 2016

looselystyled


  1. l
  2. o
  3. o
  4. s
  5. e
  6. l
  7. y
  8. s
  9. t
  10. y
  11. l
  12. e
  13. d

Car and knife violence

The US has a violence problem.

http://thenewteddy.blogspot.ca/2016/06/us-and-gun-violence.html
http://thenewteddy.blogspot.ca/2016/06/us-and-gun-violence-2.html

When you compare the USA to these other countries, it becomes obvious.

The US has a violence problem.
If you take away their guns, you'll do two thing. First you'll reduce the rate of violence a bit, secondly, you'll increase the amount of knife and car violence.

If you take away their knives and cars you'll increase the rate of hammer violence
And then of axe violence
And then of frying pan violence

If you strip everyone in the world naked, and took away all their things, the amount of fist and foot violence in the US would be off the scale compared to fist and foot violence around the world.

The US has a violence problem.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Bosnian War

Deaths to Genocide, in thousands

Bosnian - 25
Croat - 15
Serb - 8

Deaths, military and civilian, not proven due to Genocide, in thousands

Bosnian - 61
Serb - 25
Croat - 8

Ethnic Cleansing, in thousands. By it's nature it has to be estimated.

Serb - 521
Bosnian - 269
Croat - 214

Left Bosnia, in thousands.

Serb - 357
Croat - 191
Bosnian - 45

These numbers are by their nature, problematic. The Ethnic Cleansing numbers come from demographic changes in each half of the country. Areas also gained, as follows, in thousands.

Bosnian - 138
Serb - 131

The number of Croats in both halves dropped.



Recipes

Teddy's Nacho Sauce:

Take one pack of ground beef (500G / 1LB)
Cook in a pan (make all the bits stop being pink and start being brown)
Optional: drain oil
Add a jar of pasta sauce. Any will do, I recommend 'original', I personally use "Ragu with added ground beef" because I'm hardcore.
Mix well, keep the heat on so it bubbles up a bit.
If possible, simmer this, to let the sauce flavour into the beef and the beef flavour into the sauce
Put into small bowl while still hot

Use as nacho dipping sauce

Keep buying bags of nachos until the dip is gone; if nachos left over, make more dip. Repeat till end of time.


Teddy's Burritos:
Follow the same steps as above, except only use 1/5th or 1/3rd or so of the pasta sauce.
Use as filling for tortillas.
Wrap tortillas
Eat


Teddy's Home-made Hamburger Helper:
Cook up some pasta, boil it in water till it's soft and wiggly.
Strain off the water
Follow the same steps from the Nacho recipe, except instead of eating with nachos, mix the pasta in.


That's all the recipes I know.

Monday, November 28, 2016

shut up

this is really simple. "I am morally bothered by buying these products" "then don't buy these products" "but I need them" "then buy them buy accept you are a bad person" "but I don't want to do bad things" "then don't buy these products" "but I still need them" "then, again, buy them and accept your role" "but..." "SHUT UP"

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Corruption?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/businessmen-millions-regina-land-bill-boyd-1.3420479

In summary

There are two plots of land. Lets treat them as a single plot as they are beside one another and are part of this story.

The government wants to build a highway on these 200 acres of land
The government, previously bought part of this land for $10K an acre
That's $2.1 million at those prices for these plots in question
All of a sudden, without warning, a businessman from Alberta buys the land for $10M
The very next day this person sells that same land for $16M
This land is then sold to a government agency for $21M
The government agency then sells it to the highways department for the assessed price, $11.5M

There are two explanations.

1 Incompetence
The first buyer was incompetent that he did not look into expropriation possibilities.
The second buyer was incompetent for buying the land for more than it was worth.
The government agency was incompetent for buying the land for much more than it was worth, especially as it had expropriated part of this land already.
The highways department was incompetent for not buying this land sooner.

2 Corruption
The first buyer was tipped off made some money which will (or already has) found its way back to the friends of the governing party
The second buyer also got in this deal and the money, again, either will or has found its way back to these "friends"
The government was complicit, knowing that this was a great way to line their pockets from the public till



There may be more possibilities, but these are fun to think about.

unofficial segregation and racism

toronto: http://neoformix.com/Projects/DotMaps/TorontoVisMin.html
usa: http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/index.html


I've had some dense people not understand this in the past.

so, but simply; There's a massive difference between an area being 89% white/black, and an area being 99% white/black.

An open letter to the NDP and Tories RE: Castro

Dear NDP
Castro was a dictator who stomped on Democracy. Your failure to accept that means I will not be voting for your party in the next election.

Dear Tories
Castro did more for his people than the dictator he overthrew. Your failure to accept that means I will not be voting for your party in the next election.

It may shock both your parties to learn the world is not black and white and, in fact, is full of shades of grey. Liberals know that.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Porn Tips

Another reminder; this is my personal blog. Don't come to the main page (IE http://thenewteddy.blogspot.ca/ as compared to http://thenewteddy.blogspot.ca/2016/11/1938-comparative-gdp.html ) if you are not ready to see NSFW stuff.

Anyway, Porn.

Some tips.

I like pictures. I find them easier to store than videos, and a much higher quality if I want to stop and look at something nice.

So what if I find a something nice, and wish to find more of this lady.

My tips are as follows.

1 - Look for clues. Sometimes in the background is a unique object, or even worse, the lady is an idiot and her real name is somewhere in the background. If so, just google that, and you'll be taken right to the set of images from which it came. It's pretty rare (though it does happen) that a lady takes just one picture of herself, or has just one picture of herself taken. Normally there is a set of images, perhaps a dozen of them, hopefully more, from which you can pick and choose.

2 - Google Image Search. This has become progressively harder of the last, say, 18 months. Google seems to be cracking down on copyright, and/or websites that host the images are getting better at blocking google from indexing their pictures. Chrome allows you to do this for any image with a single right click. Bing has an image match, but bing's index of pictures seems to be half the size of Google. That might sound fine but when you are looking for rare images, it makes it much much harder to find.

3 - Im***fap, Mo*****less, and other websites have great features that allow you to do your own searches. Mo*****less allows you to see all the galleries the picture is in, and if any groups have pinned the image. If the group title sounds promising, a click can lead to dozens of great finds even if not within the set you are looking for. Im***fap meanwhile has a face search. While the feature needs work it is amazing at one thing; if there is a set on imagefap, and if there is another picture similar to the one you have (for example: a slightly different pose - say one with arm bent one with arm straight) this will take you right to it. Having two images to search rather than one more than doubles your chance of finding the set.
(names blanked out to prevent spambots from spamming me)

There are also a few other general tips.

Finding sets will happen in stages. You may start with 1 picture that you've seen before, and then, after 15 mins of searching, stumble on a set of 8 images. One of those images may lead you to a set of 24, and one of those may finally lead you to the full thing. When choosing additional images to search there are a few things I like to do

A - Similar poses to a "popular" image. A good hit in image search may result in 25 million pictures. If there's a pic similar to that, but slightly different, say the pic was taken from 2 inches closer, search *that* image. It'll likely be more rare, and since it's more rare, it'll be in less "random mix" collections and have a much higher chance of leading to the set.

B - Clothed images. I know it sounds silly, but it follows a solid logic; why would you have an image of a gal with her clothing on if you have a dozen of her with her clothing off? Because you have the entire set, that's why.

C - Look for clues of the same gal in different sets. For example, most selfie pictures will be taken with the same device, so if you see a girl who looks similar, but perhaps with a bit longer hair, who is in the same room as the one you are interested in, and who is using the same cam, it's almost certainly the same girl a few weeks or months later or earlier.



Lastly a caution. I mostly am interested in erotica. Put simply, a girl standing around without anything on. Perhaps lying down even. These tips work for these images, and, should work for all images; but there may be other tips you can use for other situations. For example, in hardcore stuff, you may want to look for the same equipment being used; in nudist beaches, you may wish to find everything from a single beach. I'm not fully familiar with these topics enough to give specific tips, but hopefully this will set you on the right path.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

how superpowers came to be

So...

Before WW2 there were 8 "great powers"

Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, from western europe.
Russia, America, China, and Japan, from elsewhere.


Of these, German, France, Italy, and Japan were each totally defeated at some point during the war.

China meanwhile was not only the weakest of the 8, but was internally disorganized and divided. As well, though never totally defeated, had faced significant destruction against Japan.

This left only 3 countries to compete for the title of "Great Power" in 1945.

Oh sure, there were others who tried to make claims. Canada for example now found itself with an economy, army, navy, and so forth, that would easily put it in the top 8, but Canada was only in that position due to the weakness of their competitors.

While the USSR had been heavily damaged, they had also grown significantly. After the war they effectively closed off trade with the west, and so were self sufficient, or, at least, self sufficient enough.

The United Kingdom, however, found itself in major financial trouble. The UK was forced to borrow from the US, and the US demanded a degree of subservience from that.

While you could argue there were 3 world powers after 1945, by 1956, with the suez crisis, it was clear the UK was unable to act independently to make major changes to the world, and as such, the US was also not a great power.


What's left?

Two countries.

The USA
And the USSR

All the other "great powers" had been defeated. Either by force of arms, ideological conflict and civil war, or economics, the only two "great powers" left were the USA and USSR.

Following the collapse of the USSR, the USA became the world's only superpower.

1938 comparative gdp



99 United States
47 United Kingdom
44 Soviet Union
43 Germany
25 France
24 Japan
17 Italy
9 China
9 Poland
9 Netherlands
7 Canada
7 Argentina
6 Spain
6 Brazil
5 Belgium
4 Czechoslovakia

Amendment T bullshit

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CO/63746/184134/Web01/en/summary.html
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president
Notice how every county that voted yes also voted for clinton

I don't buy this "everyone was confused" bullshit.
I will agree that maybe 5% or 10% were, but a good 40% were honestly voting to keep slavery in the constitution on purpose.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

US popular vote

election night totals (from 8am the next morning) vs current count, in millions

58.84 - 62.24
58.88 - 64.24

Eating people does not work

So there's that soylent green movie where they eat people, right?
And I've heard the same sort of thing in other works of fiction but...


The human body can provide up to 100,000 calories if you eat one.
A human eats about 1,000,000 in a year.

As such one person would need to eat 10 people to live just one year.

Even if everyone diets, your population will be cut in half every 2 months.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Generator Power

heater 1500
toaster 1300
hotplate 900 + 600
kettle 1000
computer 240
monitor 40 X 2
light 100
air conditioning 750-1500
mini fridge 250

grand total: 7,470
rounded: 7,500


So if I had a generator that produced 7500 watts I could live life without any interruption.


In reality, I don't run all these things at once. The computer is always on and the light is always on. Unless it's very hot or very cold I don't use the AC or Heater on max, and I don't use both at the same time. The fridge is always plugged in, but it's on the same fuse as the other cooking equipment and I've learned that of the 4 of them (toaster, kettle, hotplate large burner, hotplate small burner) that I can only use 2 at the same time without blowing the fuse. So the max from that fuse would be the fridge, toaster, and kettle, at 2750, plus the computer, light, and temperature units on the other plug, at under 2000, give us a total of a bit over 5000. 

The "always on" stuff (computer, fridge, lights, monitors) is 670. I do have a digital camera that's charging, some "night lights", and an alarm clock radio, but even assuming they sucked up power like crazy, in short


a 2500W generator would serve me, and a 2000W generator could be made to work as well.

Question Period

I'd make a rule that says there must be at least 48 question periods in a calendar year.
I'd make a further rule that says the prime minister must attend at least 36 of these. Deviations from this are subject to penalty.

For every week Parliament sits (defined as "at least 3 consecutive days", but "not more than 7 consecutive days starting on a sunday and ending on a saturday") there will be at least one question period. There can also not be more than 3 question periods in any given week. Deviations from this are subject to penalty.

The number of Question Periods in a week should be fairly consistent throughout the calendar year. If Parliament sits for 24 weeks, each week should have 2 periods. If Parliament sits for 36 weeks, each week should alternate between 1 and 2 periods.
Only two complimentary breaks of this are permitted. That means in a 24 week parliament only one week may have 3 Question Periods and only one week may have 1 Question Period. Deviations from this are subject to penalty.

(TL;DR = Must be regular but [more] rare [than it is now])




Each question period will last for exactly 1 hour. At the end of question period, any question or answer currently in progress will be allowed to finish. Question period begins when the speaker calls on the leader of the opposition, or their surrogate, to ask the first question. Statements by members are not counted in the 1 hour long question period.

Quorum for Question Period shall be
At least 2/5ths of all sitting members of the Governing Caucus
At least 2/5ths of all "Governing Members"
At least 2/5ths of all members of each Opposition Caucus, with one exception, so long as 2/5ths of all opposition members are in attendance.
And 2/5ths of all members combined, including the Governing Caucus, the Opposition Caucus, and Independent Members.
One opposition caucus, in part or full, may decline to attend without penalty
Deviations from this are subject to penalty.
Failure to obtain and maintain quorum shall result in Question Period being cancelled for the day. Should Quorum not be met, even after 55 minutes where it has been met, the Question Period shall be judged to have not taken place for the purposes of applying penalty.

(TL;DR = 60 minutes for questions alone, no statements; and 2/5ths of members must attend.)



Governing Members includes Cabinet, Parliamentary Secretaries, Government House Leaders, and other such officially sanctioned positions. (IE, anyone qualified to answer question)

Governing Caucus is defined as any group of members of any party, alliance of parties, or alliance of members, that make up the official Cabinet.

Opposition Caucus is defined as any group of members of any party, alliance of parties, or alliance of members, that make up the Official Opposition caucus, the 3rd party caucus, and any Additional Opposition caucuses.

Independent Members is defined as  any group of members of any party, alliance of parties, or alliance of members, or individual member without a party, alliance of parties, or any alliance with other members, who is not in an official caucus.

Official Opposition caucus is defined as any group of members of any party, alliance of parties, or alliance of members, who are not part of the Governing Caucus, but who hold the largest number of seats in Parliament, if greater than 2 seats, excepting the Governing Caucus, which can not also hold the title of another caucus, and who consent to the role of Official Opposition. In the event of a numerical tie for this position, Parliament as a whole may break the tie through a simple majority vote.

3rd party caucus is defined as any group of members of any party, alliance of parties, or alliance of members, who are not part of the Governing Caucus, and Official Opposition caucus but who hold the largest number of seats in Parliament, if greater than 2 seats, excepting the Governing Caucus, and Official Opposition caucus, which can not also hold the title of another caucus. In the event of a numerical tie for this position, Parliament as a whole may break the tie through a simple majority vote.

Additional Opposition caucuses are possible separate and additional groupings, defined as any group of members of any party, alliance of parties, or alliance of members, who are not part of the Governing Caucus, Official Opposition caucus, and 3rd party caucus, but who hold the largest number of seats in Parliament, if fewer than 10% of seats but with the consent of 2/3rds of Parliament, or if greater than 10% of all available seats in the House of Commons, excepting the Governing Caucus, Official Opposition caucus, and 3rd party caucus, which can not also hold the title of another caucus.

(TL;DR = This means there will always be at least 3 official parties, and that for there to be a 4th official party, it needs to have at least 34 seats IE 10%)






Penalties for breaking these rules would be progressively less funding for parliamentary activities of the offending party.

IE if the PM only makes 35, their party would have their funding slashed by .5%, if the PM misses 2 it would be an additional cut of 1% on top of the .5, if the PM misses 3 it would be an additional cut of 1.5% on top of the existing 1.5%. These are just examples, the actual numbers would be worked out so that if the government missed half or more, their funding would be slashed by 90%. They could only get around this if the opposition agrees; in the event of, for example, a crisis.

Question Period also relies on enough opposition members showing up and asking questions; as such, if two or more parties boycott, it is they who suffer the penalty.

(TL;DR = Skip QP and face financial penalties from reduced commons funding)

transit - good design - AM and PM peak

with this in mind as the base context for the image below
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/image.cgi?src=201211/262107.png&ref=16811


Sunday, November 20, 2016

Liberal Crime Squad

THANKS TO THEBOBSTER FOR THE FOLLOWING TIPS


What the game is 


The game is supposedly based on the symbionese liberation army. The basic idea is you start a squad of people with the objective of achieving political change. Despite the name you don't have to commit crime, but playing without crime, while possible, is much less fun.

The important part is you need/want to change political views.
Things start like this:


You want to turn everything green (Elite Liberal)

The two endgame screenshots are here:


I'm working on the 3rd right now

To get there you need to use all the tools at your disposal.


how to play


A few things to do. When starting, I recommend your childhood be as follows:
EDEABAEACE
The last two options are the most important in terms of how much they impact gameplay.
CE is usually recommended.
The wiki here http://lcs.wikidot.com/questions will help detail what the questions do and detail other concepts.
CE is good, but CB will give you a starting squad. DB will give you a squad and a sleeper, while AA will give you a car and a bit of cash. I still recommend CE though.


There are some guides
http://lcs.wikidot.com/beginner-s-guide
I'd recommend you start reading at "basic starters guide" about a third of the way down the page.


My personal tips:
Always pick A at the very start for no CCS if it's your first few rounds.
Avoid violence until you have at least a half dozen members, and even then, don't put them in the same squad, and try your best to keep your leader out of trouble.
Check your heat regularly (F, then A, C, or D for location)

Somewhat cheaty tips:
You learn by doing. To max out persuasion, talk 5 hippies into meeting with you, and just chat at them (B) without ever recruiting them until you've maxed out persuasion, then dismiss all of them without ever recruiting any of them.
The game autosaves at the end of every day. If things go really badly, you can just quit the game (close the window before the day ends) and restart it to do the day over.

My personal recommendation for how to understand the mechanics is to play a few rounds where you purposefully fuck things up to see what happens when things go sideways.

why it's fun


At it's core it's a political and an election game, combined with an "old style" wRPG. You can win the game without ever breaking a single law, but it is much much easier to do so by breaking laws.

You have to change minds on issues. One way to do that is to write a newspaper. Another is to break into a nuclear plant. You could sing music on the streets to change minds, or gun down important conservatives.

The multitude of ways in which you can achieve your goals is part of what makes the game so fun.

Congress and the counts will generally try to get all the laws to agree with their points of view, but members are flexible. So after a mass shooting, many conservatives may vote for a law that would switch the gun policy to moderate, for example.

Every year at the end of October and start of November elections are held.
In odd numbered years this is only propositions, referendums of a sort.
Every 2 years the entire House and a third of the Senate is up for election.
Every 4 years the President is up for election.
At the start (or is it end?) of May, the Supreme Court may hand down some rulings. After which justices may retire.


To get the game 


go here
https://sourceforge.net/p/lcsgame/code/commit_browser
and select "r864". (it should auto-select this, and should appear highlighted in grey)
If there's a newer version (IE r865) by the time you read this, pick that.
Click "browse code at this revision" at the bottom right
Then click "download snapshot" near the top right of the frame that just opened

This game is free monetarily, and free in use. That means you are not violating any laws by downloading this, as the creators want you to have and play the game.

Once the file downloads (it's a ZIP) unzip it, and move the folder to somewhere you'd like it to stay.

You are *almost* read to play at this point.

Now go into the "workspaces" folder.
Now go into the "release" folder.
Copy the file that's in there.
Go back to your main folder (the one that contains the workspaces folder and other folders like art and dev) and paste the file.
Now simply click that file and the game will begin!!


Edited to add


Here is my take of some "real world" politics using a LCS style








CREDIT



Somebody gave me all these instructions so I wanted to give them credit

Thanks man! :D

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Trump and Cabinet

My take on what's going on:

Trump probably likes to enter a meeting with, say, 5 other people, with a list of candidates for any position he has. That list probably has around 20 names on it.

He then probably asks each of the 5 people he's meeting with to "veto" one of them and "boost" one of them. (This would give them a +1 or -1 point score) and if anyone has negative points, they are removed from the list.

I figure he then goes over anyone with a score of 0, makes that the new list, and goes around the table again, and if needed, again and again until he only has people left who have a positive score.

This should be a list roughly half the size, or 10 people.

Then - and again, this is all just guessing based on how he acts - I'd say he asks each person in the group to give 5 people a "boost" and 5 people a "veto"

Then he would ask the 5 people around the table if they are willing to "champion" any one of the candidates, and finds 5 candidates (ideally all those with positive scores from the last round) and each advisor champions one of them.

Then and only then do I think he bothers to ask anyone their thoughts. (Before now being simply yes/no answers and numbers)

Then I figure they hold a little mock debate, where each of the 5 advisors tries to "sell" trump on the candidate they are championing.

Then I figure he asks the advisors to vote on which person they'd pick except for their own champion. Then he takes the top two from this result, maybe the top three in some cases.

(at this point the meeting is halfway over)

Then he holds a long discussion about these top two candidates, asking for pros and cons and all sorts of stuff like that.

Then once that is over, he decides, himself, without a final vote, who his choice is.
(I figure this is where things went sideways picking the veep, they when it came to this point in time, he went with christie, but they kept hammering pence, who they wanted, until he broke)

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

2016 started last year

Just a quick reminder that all this crazy "2016" stuff actually started at or before all the stuff about Kim Davis, the crazy lady from Kentucky who broke the law cause she hates gays that much.


Sanity ended on June 27th 2015 when same sex marriage became legal across the USA.

Insanity began June 28th 2015.

It won't stop on new years day 2017.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Why I don't debate climate change.

Lets say you are in a building with other people.

A man breaks in
He has a gun
You can hear him shooting people.

This is bad. You don't want to die, nor do the others with you.

"I think he's a criminal" one man says "He looked black"
"No no" another man says "He's a Terrorist, he looked Muslim to me"

Now it's your choice. What do you do.

A - Agree he's a criminal
B - Agree he's a terrorist
C - Do something about not getting shot.


If you have a brain you'll pick C.


And when it comes to Climate Change, C is building better bridges, building homes that can withstand storms, building dykes to hold black floodwaters. Protecting island nations from sinking. Diversifying farming, and opening more land to farming in areas currently not open to farming. Preparing for possible widespread future famines. Decreasing water use. Building desalination plants.


A and B is arguing about if Climate Change is caused by humans or not.


Sure it's useful to know if, for example, a criminal is bearing down on you, so that you can make changes to society to make people less likely to become criminals. But do you know when you do that sort of thing? When you are not being shot at. That's when.

Save the debate as to why the climate is changing for after we deal with the fact that climate is changing.

Friday, November 11, 2016

xxxxxx

THESE ARE NOT THE GAME RULES. IF YOU FIND THIS. THIS IS A WORKPAD. I'M ACTIVELY CHANGING THINGS.



BACKGROUND

The United Sovereign States of Russia, or USSR, is the world's only remaining superpower. Russia is a capitalist country, and leads the capitalist "eastern bloc" and "warsaw pact".

In 1990, Russia watched as Germany re-united. Germany is in a bit of chaos as the successful economy in the East is trying to absorb the much more populated but weaker economy in the West.

A few Communist Countries do remain. Japan, and Island nation right beside the largest Capitalist country, retains it's communist system. As does South Korea, and Red China; which consists of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

The question now is what happens to the former American republics. These are new countries that had been annexed by the USA, the United Socialists of America, during WW2. These are 10 countries, collectively known as "Canada" that now find themselves newly independent.



The USSR is the world's largest and most powerful economy. The second largest is it's asian ally, Indonesia.

Third is Poland, followed by Yugoslavia, and Spain, which had a Capitalist dictator for many decades. The new united Germany, however, is expected to change these numbers.

Great Britain is in a state of war as all the ethnic groups within the country fight for independence. Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall; all have massive violent revolts, while the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes; usually seen as one people as they all speak the same language (known as English) have found new ethnic pride in killing one another.



This is all the foreign information you get right now. Any future information will come in the form of news updates and as answers to questions. Note that's an and - if you ask me something about a country, I will make a decision, and report it in the news. I'd strongly uurge you to only interact with listed countries for the most part, as I'd rather not fill the entire game with lore. I will be developing stories on the development of our neighbouring republics, including Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. Each will be taking a different path and can be influenced by the path chosen by you, the players.




YOUR WORLD

The game takes place in the Free Socialist Democratic People's Republic of Prince Edward Island.

The country is a communist dictatorship in a world where Communism seems to be on the way out.

You play one of 7 members of the Politburo, and you will thus play a key role in what kind of place PEI becomes.

The PEI economy is primarily fueled by three things, Fishing, Agriculture, and Tourism.

Popular fish caught include Salmon, Tuna, Mackerel, as well as Lobster.
By far the most popular farming product is Potatoes, other products include wheat, oats, and barley, as well as beef products and vegetables such as cauliflower, carrots, and brussel sprouts.

If you want to nerd out, here are some real PEI stats from 1990, the time (roughly) the game starts http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/1990_ASR.pdf
Since PEI was a communist country, the GDP is half that found in real life.

The population of 125,000 people is not distributed exactly as in real-life, but somewhat similar.

You'll be given a budget to play with, you are the government after all, but spoiler: things are very very bad.



WHO ARE YOU

You are a member of the Continuing Central Committee of the Communist Party of The Free Socialist Democratic People's Republic of Prince Edward Island.
AKA
Politburo Members for PEI

There are 7 of you.
This game can (and if needed, will) run with fewer than 7 people.

The Politburo has 7 titles to distribute among it's members, they are:

President
Prime Minister
Chancellor
Party Secretary
Committee Chairman
Premier
Governor

None of you "legally" run the government; the National Plenipotentiary does. By tradition, the person who holds this position is the member of Parliament for Charlottetown Harbour.
Prefects hold the seats noted on the map as county capitals, while Reeves hold the positions noted as as Parish Capitals. Cities with only one MP have that MP be the Mayor. Rural MPs also serve a Sheriffs (Mayors) of the rural areas noted. The largest cities, Charlottetown, Summerside, and Stratford have their own city councils and Mayors, information about which will come out later.


WHAT YOU DO

You have just been elected as a Politburo member, and your term begins on January 1st 1991, the day the game opens. It's also the day the nation gains independence.

The Party Convention, which elected you, also passed a motion to "Examine the Communist System, and the possibility of moving to a Multi-Party and Capitalist Democracy" by a very narrow majority.

Some other former communist countries are already moving straight towards capitalist and multi-party systems, while others are reversing the reforms of the last few years and returning, in some cases, to an outright Stalinist system.


HOW YOU DO

Games will progress in "turns" that will be a 'quarter' (of a year) long each. Generally, deadlines will be a day or two or three (depending on how active people are) during which you do things. What you can do is very open. You can campaign to the public (which means posting in the forum thread)

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

In the 90's

Disclaimer: don't stray off this post on to other parts of this, my personal blog, unless you are okay with seeing potentially NSFW material. Original post below:

It was popular to, in shows set 10-20 years in the future, pick someone currently famous to be president in this fantasy world.

Donald Trump has been that person a few times. In various 90's sitcoms when they had a future scene, they'd say Trump was President for a good laugh.

However there was another name that came up a few times in 90's sitcoms as President.

Rosie O'Donnell.


Why do I bring that up?

Trump really hates her.

Where I went wrong

I was trying to get to sleep but couldn't as I've realized something. I've gone very wrong in a few spots.


I've always valued that I would take the time to hear out every side in the debate, but in the last few years I've been more and more willing to silence people. My twitter feed used to look like this



HARPER IS LITERALLY EVIL AND HATES POOR PEOPLE

ABORTION IS MURDER AND IF YOU SUPPORT IT YOUR HANDS ARE BLOODY

ROB FORD HATES ANYONE WHO IS DIFFERENT



Now it looks like this



Here are some statistics regarding employment changes in Alberta over the last quarter

Here are some statistics regarding planned and real economic growth of income bands

Here are some statistics regarding how the 2016 election compares to 2012 in various counties



While it's certainly more interesting, It's occurred to me that I lost something; I lost my connection with everyday and real voters.

As such, I not only want to use this chance to apologize to those I've attacked and unfollowed, but to announce my plan to reach out to these people again and try to understand where they are coming from and why they say the things they do.


Reminder

At this time 4 years ago, the popular vote totals we were looking at this time were as follows:

60.7M Obama
57.8M Romney

The final totals were:

65.9M Obama
60.9M Romney



The CURRENT Vote totals are

59.8M Clinton
59.6M Trump


Do not be surprised if millions of more votes turn up as states count all their mail in, late, contested, absentee, early, advance, paper, and miscounted ballots.

Popvote Percentages

47.50% Clinton
47.33% Trump
3.23% Johnson
0.96% Stein
0.36% McMullin
0.36% Write-Ins combined total
0.26% All Others

popvotes

all are apx

59,399,248 - Trump
59,612,076 - Clinton
4,042,924 - Johnson
1,207,224 - Stein
420,209 - McMullin

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

schwicky_schwag

schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag schwicky_schwag

Yukon thingy


WHITEHORSE BALLOTS CAST
4957 LP
4056 YP
3358 ND
96 GP


RURAL BALLOTS CAST
2447 LP
2216 YP
1570 ND
49 GP
38 IND

Dabir and what I really think about him

he's fine.

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Military Power 2

So
Poland and Canada both came out to 30
Canada imports all of it's battletanks, whereas Poland is not only able of manufacturing their own, but designing them as well.

As such I've manually added or subtracted some points to make up for this.

Lastly, since only "part" of the US Nuclear force was able to be accounted for, I've decided to remove it, by removing 100 points.

results: 

1000 United States 

Subtotal below this line: 664 (including lower subtotal)

130 France
120 United Kingdom
85 Germany
84 Turkey
52 Italy
38 Poland
36 Spain 
30 Canada 

Subtotal below this line: 112

19 Netherlands
15 Greece
12 Norway
12 Romania
10 Belgium
9 Portugal
7 Denmark
5 Czech Republic
4 Bulgaria
4 Hungary
3 Slovakia
3 Croatia
2 Lithuania
2 Estonia
2 Slovenia
1 Latvia
1 Albania
1 Luxembourg
0 Iceland

-----

For comparison, here are a few other allies, using these numbers:

85 Japan
60 India
48 South Korea
45 Brazil
42 Israel
35 Australia
22 Sweden

Subtotal of these: 337

In other words
1000: USA
1000: Allies of the US, combined


Friday, November 4, 2016

military power in nato

I've been mathing on this for a bit. These are the comparative military strengths within NATO, in units of "militarystrength"

1100 United States
112 France
106 United Kingdom
83 Germany
83 Turkey
59 Italy
36 Spain
30 Canada
30 Poland
22 Greece
19 Netherlands
12 Norway
12 Romania
10 Belgium
10 Portugal
8 Denmark
5 Czech Republic
4 Bulgaria
4 Hungary
3 Slovakia
3 Croatia
2 Lithuania
2 Estonia
2 Slovenia
1 Latvia
1 Albania
1 Luxembourg
0 Iceland
























































brexit

Imagine: a parl vote is held in early feb to authorize the PM to trigger section 50

If parl says cool, everything is fine.

If parl says fuck you, the PM can call an election, and say that only people who promise to vote to authorize are allowed to be Conservative candidates.

That election would happen on the 20th of March

Giving time for the new Parl to meet and vote to authorize and trigger section 50, "by the end of March"


(this will probably be a much longer post on the real blog later)

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Alternate History - Louisiana

A little something I'm working on


This starts when the US fights, but loses, their rebellion for Independence. Britain lets most of the leaders off with amnesty, but a dozen of the top leaders: Washington, Hancock, Jefferson, Gates, Greene, Arnold, Howe, Lee, Jay, Adams, King, and Pinckney, were hanged. The Rebellion was officially declared "put down" in 1781.

As a result, the 13 colonies are given limited autonomy, but are prohibited from meeting in a continental congress. Limited compromises are also made on land open to settlement.

Many Colonists simply ignored the new laws, while others swing back to support the Crown.

Napoleon, after winning power in France, tried to foment rebellion in the 13 colonies, and this worked; sadly, not fully as intended.

Over the next 15 years, colonists begun to settle in Louisiana. With support from the small but isolated Vermont Republic, and other outside forces, colonists were able to gather the money to purchase the territory for themselves. In 1812, this broke into war with the Colonies facing many of their own colonists, as well as the "Free Louisiana Republic" of FLR. The war ended in 1815 with an effective stalemate; areas already under control of the colonists were joined to the FLR while areas held by the British and their Colonies would remain under the Crown; an agreement officially agreed to by the Congress of Vienna. The borders would follow the watershed boundaries by in large.

In 1833, the British decided to abolish slavery. This started a rebellion in parts of the 13 colonies. The Reformist Whig government in London decided not to directly intervene, and after a war lasting 2 years, the 13 colonies was divided into two highly independent colonies, New England, and the United States.

By 1846, the FLR, along with Texas, sparked the Mexican-Louisiana War. Upon winning, Texas is joined to the FLR. Settlers in the Mexican "Northern Territories" wanted to join with the nation, but the FLR government, not having designs on a border with the pacific, refused. In 1848 an effective proxy war, between those in the FLR who back this idea, and Mexico, breaks out. By 1850, with the support of Californian settlers, and Mormon settlers, the Republic of Deseret is set up in the area.

Between 1850 and 1874 small wars and skirmishes break out between the 7 main colonies on the continent. Following a near continent-wide war in 1874, the 7 colonies agree to meet, on the 100th anniversary of the Continental Congress, in Philadelphia. This was a great success, and the 7 nations; Mexico, Quebec, Columbia, Deseret, New England, The United States, and Louisiana, agreed on the permanent and final borders, as well as on limited trade deals. The 7 nations agreed they would meet annually in the city to discuss continent-wide issues.

Peace and Economic Growth would continue between 1874-1914.




WORK IN PROGRESS




At the start of the war, in 1939, the map looked like this:


When the war began

WORK IN PROGRESS


Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Math

Lets say you send out letters to random people. In it you pick the winner of the NHL's Stanley Cup. You do this every 4 years.

In 1980, you send 100,000 letters saying that New York will win, and 100,000 saying Philly will win.

NY wins. So in 1984 you take those 100,000 people you sent the "right" letter to, and tell 50,000 of them that NY will win again, and 50,000 of them that Edmonton will win.

When the latter happens, you send letters in 1988 to 25,000 people saying Edmonton will win again, and to 25,000 people saying Boston will win. Edmonton wins.

1992 sees 12,500 letters saying Pittsburg will win. 1996 sees 6,250 saying Colorado will win. 2000 has you sending 3,125 letters saying New Jersey will win. So on and so forth.

At the end of this you will be sending around 390 letters to people who, every time you've sent them a letter, you've been right. Despite this, you've just been randomly guessing.


Lets also look at this backwards.

Lets say there are a series of models that predict a Presidential election winner. Only one of the 'long term' models, ones that started in 1980, have been right in every election between 1980 and 2012.

2 of them, however, were right prior to 2012 (IE in 2008)
4 in 2004, 8 in 2000, 16 in 1996
in fact back in 1980 you only need to start with 256 models, half of which lose their first guess.


And ALL of this is based on random chance. Just randomly picking a winner.



I'm not saying that this or that model is bad or good at predicting a winner, but I am saying that just because something has happened X times in a row, it does not mean it's a quality model. Quality models are quality models, and sometimes, quality models are wrong.

Monday, October 31, 2016

How an Automatic Transmission works

Googled around to figure this out but it was unclear, so, I'll explain.

Engine spins stuff. That's like the job of an engine. You know its spinning super fast cause the pitch goes higher.

Once it goes too high, it makes stuff spin SUPERFAST. This cause (simplifying GREATLY) a set of breaks inside the transmission to stop working (cause SUPERFAST) which then triggers a gear shift.

*dusts hands*


PS its a lot more complex than this but that's simplified.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

berenstein vs berenstain - AVGN video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB3CybXl8rs&ab_channel=Cinemassacre

good stuff.

Also, to update an earlier post:

http://thenewteddy.blogspot.ca/2016/06/mandela-effect-theory.html

Sadly since that post we lost Anton Yelchin. However, go re-read that old post of mind and remember how old Walter Koenig is. One day we will lose him too, and it is just this kind of memory mix-up that causes these errors in memory.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Prunes

I've eaten like 30 prunes in the past 24 hours.

I mean I do poop but they are increasingly like dry poops that don't want to come out.

Also, a reminder, this is my personal blog. Don't go wandering around here if you don't want to be surprised. I might post a picture of my bum one day.

Friday, October 14, 2016

Super Duper Post to be delayed

My super duper important ultra mega post is being delayed until monday, where it will have more of an impact.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Most important blogpost I've ever made on my professional blog tomorrow

Tomorrow morning at 7:30am, I will make the single most important blogpost I've ever made on my professional blog.

It will be so important that if I do it well, I can make a living off this
If I do it poorly, I may never make a living off this.

Mansplaining

Reference to earlier blogpost: http://thenewteddy.blogspot.ca/2016/07/pedantic.html


This has been cropping up more and more so I thought I'd do a little post here so I don't have to explain the same basic facts over and over.


So what is Mansplaining?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansplaining

to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing."

 "explaining without regard to the fact that the explainee knows more than the explainer, often done by a man to a woman"


While the wiki article says "typically" and "often", the origin of the term is with the context of "always"
The origin section (at the time of writing this blogpost) clearly details this with phrases like

 whereupon the man cut her off and asked if she had "heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year" – not considering that it might be (as, in fact, it was) Solnit's book.
implication: he did this because she was a woman

  she did not use the wordmansplaining, but described the phenomenon as "something every woman knows."


So we've confirmed this is something done by a man to a woman

Why is that important? Well consider what happens if this is done by a man to a man

You might not think much, but consider that this can not be something done by a woman because of the word "man".



Either way, this word implies the person committing the act is sexist.



As such, this is either defined, as confirmed, as something done by a man to a woman, or, is something that only Men do.

Frankly the latter is horrifically sexist. It would imply, heavily, that all pedantic men are, in fact, sexist, while not implying the same for pedantic women, or pedantic persons of other gender persuasions. It also goes beyond implying that being pedantic is wrong (check the link at the top of this post for my rebuttal to that) into suggesting that you are sexist just for being a pedant. 

In the words of those in my social circles, fuck that noise.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Countries to compare the USA to

European Union (28 countries)
European Free Trade Association (4, non-eu north/central/west europe)
Central European Free Trade Agreement (7, non-eu balkan)
Monetary Agreement with the EU (4 tiny countries)
United Kingdom (in case this is read post-brexit)

Which I shall call "Main Europe". It has 43 countries. Note that this does not include countries like Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine.

As well as the following countries from outside of Main Europe:

Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Japan
Taiwan
South Korea
Israel
Chile





all of these countries are, in some way, comparable in terms of:

politics
economics
culture

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Projects Resuming

Projects on my personal blog are resuming. Also, apologies to ed. What I said was done out of anger.

Friday, October 7, 2016

Projects on hold for the time being.

Projects on hold for the time being. Due to personal reasons, all current projects on my personal blog are on hold indefinitely.

Also, fuck you ed, you unethical shit.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Doubling up

As well as a professional and personal blog, I have a professional and personal youtube channel!


Wednesday, September 21, 2016

England in the United States.

One reason I maintain this blog is that it allows me to exercise my imagination. As such, I wanted to look at a union between the "anglo" nations. In particular, the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.


To begin, I want to look at some of these nations, one by one. England is where I'd like to start.

Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland could all easily join a "States" into this new country; which would be an enlarged USA in many ways. One problem is what to do with England. Adding a single new state with over 54 million people which would have 2 senators; compared to the entire rest of the USA, which has 6 times as many people, and 50 times as many Senators. There is simply no way the English would ever accept this.

England may then simply suggest getting rid of equal numbers of Senators per state. The problem is that the US would never accept this change to the constitution.

So what do you do?

You cheat.

There is no reason why one state, voluntarily, by it's free consent, can't simply hand over all of it's money, and power, to another state, or, another organization.


As such, each of the regions of England becomes it's own state. Each of these region. They each elect a lower house, using the same constituencies as is current, with updates for population adjustments as needed, and each chooses members for a house of lords. At the start of every session, the state legislature meets, and votes to, willingly, hand over all powers of government, to an organization known as the "Parliament of England"

The "Parliament of England" is simply a pool of all state legislators. As such it would operate much like the existing Parliament does. Additionally, there is no need for a state to hand over ALL powers, as such, Wales may decide to keep it's current powers, and even Scotland and/or Northern Ireland may decide to join in to this in a limited way.

For all intents and purposes, this means England acts as though it was a single state, except, rather than electing 2 senators, they elect 18.


So why am I using the existing regions, which have all sorts of problems? The answer to that is shockingly simple:



Any other division of regions would be equally unpopular. There really is no better way to divide up England, just other equally bad ways.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Bonus: A Big Country

Welcome to my first "bonus" post. A "bonus" post is a post where I already have another unrelated blogpost somewhere on that day.

This is a fantasy merger of the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Jamaica. I've simply taken the vote from each country and plugged it into a proportional representation calculator. I've presumed 723 seats. Why 723? Well I've used it before. Why did I use it before? Because I used it before that. Why did I use it the first time? I sort of forget; but I did do some math showing that it's divisible by this and added that with another thing, and so forth. In short, I had a good reason for picking 723, I just forget what that reason was, and I've been using 723 for a "big legislature" for so long, that I don't really see a good reason to change it.

Anyway, here are the results:


As you can see on the left, things are a bit of a mess. On the right, however, we can divide things into groupings. you may be wondering about some of these, like why Labour from Jamaica is in with the Conservatives, but I can assure you that these groupings do make ideological sense.

The only grouping that makes sense for a majority is a combination of the Conservatives and the Liberals.

Regardless, I thought it might be interesting to compare popular support of parties between different countries.


Saturday, September 17, 2016

Accounting for nonexistent UK Liberals

Welcome to my personal blog where I don't have to justify why I'm making a post.


I am going to calculate what the electoral results in the UK would have been like if the Liberals had run a full slate of candidates during the period they did not.

The math I'm using is thus:
First I am presuming each riding is the same size. I'm doing this for two reasons. First it's my personal blog so if I want to write "riding" instead of "constituency" I can, and secondly, while being incorrect, this assumption saves a hell of a lot of time with the calculation.
Second, I will divide the Liberal results by the number of ridings they ran in to find the per-riding vote, then I will presume that 2/3rds of that is their 'base' nation-wide vote, and add that figure to the remaining ridings they did not run in; before adding it back up to get a total. I will then adjust Labour and Conservative popular vote figures to account for these new Liberal votes.


1951
44.4% Con
45.1% Lab
9.8% Lib

1955
45.8% Con
42.7% Lab
10.2% Lib

1959
46.0% Con
40.9% Lab
12.4% Lib

1964
41.1% Con
41.8% Lab
15.7% Lib

1966
39.5% Con
45.3% Lab
13.5% Lib

1970
44.4% Con
41.2% Lab
11.4% Lib

1974 Feb
36.8% Con
36.1% Lab
21.5% Lib

1974 Oct*
39.2% Con
35.8% Lab
18.3% Lib

* In this election the Liberals ran 619 candidates, compared to Labour's 623, and the Tories 622. As such no math was done and the real and actual results are presented.


Compare this to Thatcher's victory in 1979 on 42.9%
Foot's 1983 loss on 27.6%, vs the Alliance on 25.4%
Blair's 1997 victory at 43.2%, vs the Tory loss on 30.7%

As well as the most recent elections

2005
32.4% Con
35.2% Lab
22.0% L-D

2010
36.1% Con
29.0% Lab
23.0% L-D

2015
36.9% Con
30.4% Lab
7.9% L-D


This helps put recent highs/lows into proper perspective, as the modern L-Ds try to run full slates, while the old party did not, and as such, popular vote statistics can get skewed so that some parties appear to be doing worse than they actually are.




Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Why I post provinces in the order I do.

I tend to post provinces in a certain order. Newfoundland, PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick... Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC... Quebec and Ontario.

You may wonder why. I have a simple answer.

It's a compromise.

There are three common ways to list the provinces. One of them is alphabetical. I dislike this strongly, so, I ignore it. The other two are geographically, either east to west or west to east, and by order of population.

Geographic would see the following:

NL, PE, NS, NB, QC, ON, MB, SK, AB, BC

Population would see the following:

PE, NL, NB, NS, SK, MB, AB, BC, QC, ON


What you may notice is that there are a few swaps. PE and NL. NB and NS. SK and MB. In each case the province to the east (in each pair) has a few more people. You also have a pair of pairs. NL, PE, NS, NB, are the 4 smallest provinces, and the 4 eastmost provinces. BC, AB, MB, SK are the 4 'middle' population provinces, and the 4 western provinces. QC and ON are the 2 'middle' provinces geographically, the the 2 largest provinces demographically.

As such I developed a "compromise" list.

You start geographically in Newfoundland. After reaching New Brunswick, you hop over the two largest provinces, landing in Manitoba, and continue heading west.


What this does is allow me to present a list in both geographic and demographic order.


Remember too that I frequently post maps. One map has all 4 atlantic provinces (32 ridings) and another has MB and SK, as well as the Territories (31 ridings) meaning that I can do 6 provinces, 2 maps, and 63 ridings first. I follow this with Alberta (34) and BC (42). before going to Quebec (78) and Ontario (121)

As such this allows me to 'ramp up the excitement' as I 'ramp up' the workload on myself.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

The newfie joke that newfies will like

A newfie calls the RNC, the Police. "Hello is the the RNC?? I'm calling about my neighbor George Smith. He is hiding marijuana in his firewood!"

The next day the RNC descends on George's house and search the shed where the firewood is kept. They bust open every piece of firewood, but find no marijuana. They apologize to George and leave. The phone rings at Georges's..

Hey George
Mike?
Yea! Hey, did the RNC come to your house?
Yes?
Did they say you had Marijuana?
...Yes?
Did they look for it in your back yard?
Yes.
Did they look in your firewood.
Yes, yes they did.
Did they chop it all up?
Yes... How do you know this Mike?
(silence)
(silence)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORGE

Friday, September 9, 2016

Is Stargate real?

No.

Hope that answers that; but just for fun, lets pretend it is. Now if we happened to find the stargate on October 28th, 1994, the day the movie premiered, that'd be weird, as, how could we make a "cover" for something that's not happened yet.

Just the theory going forward is that Stargate, the movie and TV shows, are a "cover", much as 'wormhole extreme' was within the show. As such, the stargate would need to have been found before 1994, and likely, before 1993 also.

The movie was likely created when someone in the know approached Dean Devlin and asked him to craft a cover story, and that he involved Emerich, and any "backstory" to this was concocted. Given the role the air force plays (something that no other sci-fi show does, usually referring to space travel folks as some sort of navy) it's likely the air force has the actual stargate in our little fictional examination.

It'd be most likely that only the basics were handed over. "We have a stargate that we found in ancient Egypt that allows us to travel to other planets. We are not sure who built it, but we've met aliens, and not all of them are friendly. There are humans living on other planets." As such, it is my guess that ideas like the goa'uld are fiction. It is my guess that certain real events did make it into the show, but that a good 90% of the episodes and plots are pure fiction, and that even the real events that made it into the show were twisted to fit the show itself.


Some plot points / ideas that came from this fictional reality we are looking at, are as follows:

Atlantis was not across the ocean, it was through the stargate.
The government tried to shut down the stargate, but this was stopped when earth was nearly invaded.
There are a race of beings who are willing to help us.
Arriving on a planet sparked off a war on that planet.
Someone stepped through the gate prior to it's official "activation" (torment of tantalus)

Looking at a possible government shut down, the time that makes the most sense is 1989. John Tower was nominated by the new President Bush (sr) as the Defence Secretary.

Right at about this same time, the USSR was making steps to end the cold war (accepting the rulings of the world court) and the USA was carrying out nuclear tests. In the month prior, 6 rockets launched into space, and on the 13th, the space shuttle did as well. This happened just hours after a massive "solar flare" knocked out power for Quebec, and showered north america with 'solar particles' which cause auroras as far south as florida and texas.

Importantly, as the day approached, Tower, a former Senator (and therefore called "Senator Tower") was rejected by the Senate. Was this because Tower was the Kinsey of reality? Tower wanted to shut down the program? Tower was killed in an airplane crash a few years later.

Donald Ratsch even recorded space shuttle communication, saying an alien spacecraft was under observation. Of course he later claimed this was a "hoax", perhaps under great pressure?


One question may be where is the stargate. My answer to that is Area 51, which I note, is an air force installation. My guess is the decision to put it in Colorado was that of the writers and producers, and not something instructed by the Military. If anything, the Military may have told them outright to not put it in Area 51.


So that covers the where, but when? As eluded to earlier, finding it in 1993 makes little sense; so when was it found and activated?

I believe, in this fiction, that it was found among the relics of "ancient egypt" by the British, and that the British managed to activate it, briefly, and someone went through it. It's possible this happened when it was first found, and hence, why it was never publicly disclosed. The British, though, were unable to figure out exactly what it is, does, or how to work it, but did know that it would be a bad thing for Hitler to get. As such, I suspect it was sent to America, with the deal that the UK would be kept in the loop.

I believe that the Stargate was first activated in 1968. Possibly a year earlier or later, but right around this time, possibly a few years earlier even. Consider that the Internet was officially invented in 1969, and that right after this period an explosion in transistor technology allowed for what became modern computers.

Johnson was not popular with the 'establishment' of the government, and so, likely, was not told, as the new President would take office soon. This means Nixon was the first President to be aware of the stargate. In the UK Harold Wilson was Prime Minister, but there were suspicions of him being a soviet stooge, and so he was not told. I also suspect that Heath was not told, as, at the time, his governor was tenuous, and Wilson could return. When wilson finally resigned in 1976, they finally told his successor, James Callaghan, who is known for being a bridge builder with the US.

When the Soviets found out is open for debate. If the gate was first activated a bit earlier, it's possible that things like the 1967 outer space treaty was a result of the stargate; with the Soviets wanting to limit what the US could do. However, I am certain that Brezhnev knew sometime before his death in 1982.

I don't believe that further worldwide information came out until 1975-1984 or about that time. Leaders like Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterrand, and Brian Mulroney were likely informed. It's also logical that the leaders of Japan, China, and Italy were also informed. In fact the G7 may have simply been a front for the leaders of the countries aware of the stargate (except the two communist countries mentioned) to meet. Consider that Canada did not join the G7 (which was the G6 in 1975) until 1976. There were suspicions among some that Pierre Trudeau was some kind of Communist, and so, holding off on telling him may have been the result of this delay. Consider as well that Italy was also seen as a lesser partner within the G7, and as a country that switched leaders often, this could well be the reason.

Today, I fictionally believe the governments of the G20 all officially know about this stargate program. I'd say that most other EU countries also officially know, such as Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium, as well as countries too small for the G20 like Ireland, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Outside the G20/EU/NATO, there is another group of countries that potentially know, and that is former Soviet republics. Outside of that, there is just Israel.

I do, however, think that some countries "unofficially" know; that is, they are aware of the stargate, but the US will not confirm it's existence to them. Iran is a clear member of this group, while Pakistan is a very likely member; having stolen that information from India.


So what is the gate used for? Mostly science I'd say. I doubt it causes nearly as much problems as it does in TV Land, and is likely far more dangerous to use. IE folks on our side die after going through the gate, but the threat to the planet is very low.

The idea that we bring back some kind of alien computer and within a week can advance our computer information by decades is insane. What happens is that they find some kind of alien computer, look it over, and figure out that somehow, using only transistors, they've managed to cram an entire processor into this puny little area. So; they get that information out to science, and let them figure out exactly how that's achieved. IE the main benefit is that science is pointed in the right direction. They are basically told "here is something that will work; find out how" and that is why some developments happen so fast.

I'm also fairly certain the Stargate was moved out of Area 51 in or around 1995. Where to, however, I can't say for sure. However, ironically, Cheyenne mountain saw substantial "upgrades" at around this time, but given that people have pestered around (so much so that they had to put up a fake sign saying stargate command on a mop closet) it's likely that if it was moved here, it was again moved. A good location for this would have been Kyrgyzstan as a bone thrown to the Russians, but after the events in Ukraine, it is very likely it has again been moved.


And thus, the stargate is revealed. Or at least, if we pretend it has been, we can finally end this post which is starting to get rambly and has gone one for too long.