Australia: carrying out elections.

Voting is compulsory and you will be fined if you don’t vote without an acceptable reason.

But because voting is compulsory, it’s extremely easy and accessible. Waiting in line for more than 15 minutes is a long wait. Even in the suburbs you’re not usually more than a five minute drive from a polling place.

If you think you’ll have trouble getting to a polling place on election day (a Saturday), you can request a postal ballot or vote early at a different polling place.

We have an independent electoral commission federally and in each state/territory to organise elections (depending on which level of government you’re voting for). They also handle district boundaries to remove gerrymandering.

All ballots are marked and counted by hand. The counting process is open and transparent: any candidate can send people to inspect the counting process and ensure there are no irregularities.

This sounds like a Carmen Sandiego heist

This is so mind numbingly fucking stupid. I have linguistics training and my dickhead uncle tried to pull this one on me. He’s never tried to flex his grammar on me since.

Next time this shit happens to you, try this trick.

In the above question, the word “can” could be interpreted in one of two senses.

• One is the deontic sense, which denotes permission or approval.
• The other is the epistemic sense, which denotes capability.

As a competent English speaker, you will easily infer that vampire is using the deontic “can”.

The confusion seems to derive from the recipient’s inability to understand that modals in English grammar can possess different senses depending on context.

It is worth noting that the deontic “can” has been documented in writings for hundreds of years. It is a normal and standard element of English grammar. Case in point: the idiot trying to flex on you knows what you mean but they’re pretending they don’t.

It’s not my problem that you don’t understand basic English grammar. Maybe you should go read a few books and educate yourself.

Did you ever contrast it with Brave New World? In many ways the latter is more disturbing since the masses are kept busy with frivolity to question their world.

I think this is a really interesting question. To me, if I hear a claim, I might say I accept it as knowledge or believe it as a worldview.

For example, I get irked by people asking if I “believe” in climate change. To me, it’s not a matter of belief: there is a body of knowledge being scrutinised by extraordinarily smart and talented people. I accept the existence of and need to mitigate climate change.

On the other hand, do I believe we’re not alone in the universe? I can’t rely on knowledge, it’s a lot of intuition.

I wish that naked TLDs were a thing. Like https://com/ or https://london/

I used to love forums back in the day, but I must say I’ve really gotten over the format of the medium. It promotes email-like long form responses with space used up with avatar images, handles and signature blocks. Nested replies become a nightmare steer several layer’s and you’re cooked on mobile.

Would love a Lemmy-like plugin to parse vBulletin forums. Endless scroll for topics, minimal non-content fluff, easy and quick replies. (The irony of this reply length isn’t lost on me. Most of my replies are short, promise!)

Thanks for the suggestion I’ll follow it up!

I remember HATING clothes for Christmas. But now it’s all I want (so long as it’s my style). I don’t want random useless shit at Christmas, I want stuff I can use for years and wear out.

Thank you for reminding me of this one! I keep forgetting to try it out

FHS is an absolute dumpster fire that would never be dreamed up in this day and age

One pothole and it’s done for

People using carriage returns as paragraph breaks 😭😭😭

I’d agree with this. When I first started using Excel in school and university, I’d follow the instructions and not really know why I was doing what I was doing.

But then, having to work with Excel at work and make it do new shit, the penny dropped in my head and I understood how spreadsheets worked.

I use spreadsheets for heaps of things now, even if I don’t need to use formulas. Excel has some weird idiosyncrasies but it’s a good product overall. It’s not as bad as Word, which most people use incorrectly.

Thanks, I hate it

Exercising. When I hit 30, my metabolism wasn’t what it used to be and my appetite didn’t slow down to match. To stay a good weight, I decided either I’d have to eat less or exercise more. I chose the latter.

I formed the habit through the pandemic, but in the time since I’ve strengthened it further. I run, swim, and ride.

I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been and exercising during the week is just part of my routine. I think I’ve baked it into my life enough now that it’s here to stay.

I mean, Cunard does transatlantic sailings with the QM2, but your environmental impact for doing so would be high. Your impact would be far lower (per kilogram) if you did travel passenger on a cargo ship.

Use a piece of leather or some multiple sheets of masking tape

I forget who said it, but:

There are four types of economy.

• Developed
• Developing
• Japan
• Argentina

I think the issue is Apple guards their wallet so tightly that basically no jurisdiction can get their IDs in it