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.