103 karma · joined October 6, 2017
It would be good if you would do the same. Your comments to him seem to not follow those guidelines.
State and local governments have been handling their own elections since before the country was founded. This is a good thing, because it keeps elections close to the people, accountable to the people.
The last thing we need is nationalized elections. That would make all of our elections vulnerable together. And that includes federal funding for state and local elections, because federal funding always comes with extensive rules and regulations, which would effectively put elections under federal control.
We need to move more government and accountability closer to the people, not to Washington, D.C.
Does voter ID improve election security?
Which party opposes voter ID laws?
> 23 seconds is abnormal, not the experience of most users, and therefore likely either not consistent for you (maybe your WiFi connection dropped) or due to some wierd configuration on your end.
And then you said:
> I tested a few times this morning, and had clean-cache "load" times of 10-35 seconds
And the middle of that range is 22.5 seconds. And you accuse him (a commenter on HN) of being so inexperienced that he can't distinguish between a new UI's very slow load times and his WiFi disconnecting?
> (Technically speaking, I work on Gmail, but unrelated to this)
Is everyone on the Gmail team like this? If so, no wonder we're having these problems. Google just won't listen.
The first thing I noticed about the new UI, and the thing I notice every time I load it, is that it takes 5-10 times as long to load as the former UI. It's just yet another reason to migrate off of Gmail for me.
Magit does this in Emacs, especially when used with Helm.
As I said in the previous comment, "English is not a person."
Let's look at a good source: Webster:
1. "According to the primary and natural import of words; not figuratively; as, a man and his wife can not be literally one flesh." (emphasis added) No comment required.
2. "With close adherence to words; word by word." For this definition, the given example helps: "So wild and ungovernable a poet can not be translated literally. --Dryden." Clearly this definition is not the opposite of the first.
> When you clip something - are you attaching it or cutting it off?
As I said in the previous comment, there are some words that have multiple, contradictory meanings. "Literally" is not one of them; by its nature, it cannot be. If you disagree with me, you should argue this point rather than cite irrelevant examples.
> The most wonderful thing about languages, from a linguistic anthropological view, is precisely how they change over time as the living generations shape and mold language to their liking.
Linguistic anthropology cannot confer wonderfulness on anything, for it merely observes and catalogs; it does not pass judgment. My argument does not lie within its purview.
The problem arises as a living generation loses touch with reality, and as certain entities strive to confuse it by muddling their language. It's not important whether "table" means "to consider" or "to not consider." It is important whether "literally" still means "literally", especially in this day and age, as the pace of change is ever increasing. As fragile, finite, foolish humans, we desperately need solid handles on reality to cling to. Those who would encourage us to render the word useless are doing a disservice to us all. You would do well to not be one of them.
No, it doesn't.
Some words change meaning over time, as language naturally changes.
That is not the case with this word. This word is fundamental, like a gatekeeper to discussion of reality. It can no more mean its opposite than can "light" mean "dark", or "good" mean "evil."
> Thanks English.
English is not a person. English didn't do anything. By saying this, you deflect blame from those who are actively working to disrupt our use of language and corrupt our discourse.
The OED is not in charge of the English language. Just because someone who works there decided to rubber-stamp a definition into being doesn't mean that a word literally has the opposite meaning. If it means that people are already commonly misusing it, then it's all the more reason to stand up for the correct meaning. If we lose the ability to refer to reality, to distinguish from fantasy, then how will we even discern them in our own minds?
This is not centuries ago, before electronic communication, when trends took decades or centuries to travel. Today, you can post on Twitter one minute, and be world-famous (or infamous) the next. Use that power to make language better, stronger, and more meaningful. There are already enough people throwing in the towel, and others actively working to destroy.
If only I could easily use something like notmuch/isync on my phone...
The real question is how Hanlon's Razor applies to itself.
Of course, this is what Marxism does: fight for the oppressed--when it's convenient. The rest of the time, they are fodder.
So tell us, Dan, how would one criticize the Chinese government for imprisoning dissidents and genocide, while staying within your guidelines? How must one couch it to pass the Great Firewall of Hacker News? Serious question.
One, it's stated vaguely. What would qualify? Which religion, and which society? You would likely claim that there was some society somewhere which already had such a standard, and that therefore religion had nothing to do with it. It's too easy for you to dismiss any example because your requirements are not well defined.
Second, how far back are you willing to go? Go far enough back in human existence and we can't trace the provenance of a certain moral value.
Third, it depends on your existing beliefs about religion, creation, etc. If you believe that humans were created by a creator being who endowed them with certain abilities and tendencies, then who's to say whether a certain tendency was a matter of religion or society? If one believes that the tendency first came innate from our creation, and later was made explicit in revelation, was that tendency from religion or society?
On the other hand, if you believe that life happened spontaneously and that humans gradually evolved from single-cell organisms, then you have already eliminated religion as a possible source of anything, because no religion would be true, in which case everything would fall under the category of "society." (Alternatively, anyone can claim, "A god spoke to me and you should do what I say," and that would qualify as religion. In which case, I could claim that a god spoke to me, and that you should therefore believe everything I say. And then "religion" ceases to be a meaningful category, leaving us once again with only "society.")
So, as you can see, your request is not so simple, and is really just fodder for useless Internet arguments. If you want to discuss it seriously, you will have to address these matters first.
The apparent lack of info about this (short of reading the source myself), and it still being in "beta" makes me very reluctant to trust it with my important data.