English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

12:04 AM

@JohanLarsson Yes, it is!

Android should manage storage better.

@JohanLarsson Oh, I forgot: of course we would want to see a screenshot of Settings>Storage!

Good night.

Cerberus

12:18 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Do you believe in Internet advertising?

In its being effective?

> Hell, just the idea that the sorts of folks frequenting these sites even look at banner ads is kind of laughable.

In fact, some of us are so conditioned to ad blindness that it actually took a bit of an effort to get me consciously focus on the City of London Police banner ads in that picture -- and I didn't even notice the top banner until I was proofreading this post. Can't imagine that's particularly productive.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:08 AM

@Cerberus Well, it doesn't have zero effect. I mean, there are clicks. But it's true that people ignore ads. Just today my ISP inserted a half-window-sized "ad" into my browser to warn me of a bandwidth limit. I didn't notice it for like 20 pages while I was reading some webcomic. It wasn't until later that I was wondering "why do I have to scroll so much to see this"

My brain literally deleted the ISP's warning "ad" from my model of the universe, and replaced it with a semantic nothing that was merely in the way of the content.

That said, I do notice some other ads in other places.

Cerberus

Haha, exactly.

So you don't use Adblock?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

No.

I have a built-in adblock in my brain, it seems.

Cerberus

We all do.

I sometimes see ads when I have to open a page in Chrome.

Would you use Adblock if every website had a Flattr button?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, clearly not everyone. Because people are clicking on ads. My company relies on this as a source of revenue.

If every website had a flattr button they wouldn't need to serve ads.

Cerberus

Very few people, one would imagine...

There are enough websites with Flattr buttons that still serve ads. "Serve", I hate that word. "Foist" is better.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:14 AM

@Cerberus One would imagine wrongly. Ads are very successful for us.

Cerberus

Maybe they work on dumb people...

By the way, good news!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

They work when people are looking for products.

Cerberus

You know about the most important treaty ever to be signed between your country and mine?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

They don't work when people aren't looking for products. Except for brand recognition, or if your ads are really nice to look at.

@Cerberus no

Cerberus

You should, it's Very Important.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:16 AM

What treaty is that?

Cerberus

Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a proposed free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union. == History == CETA is Canada's biggest bilateral initiative since NAFTA. It was hatched as a result of a joint study "Assessing the Costs and Benefits of a Closer EU-Canada Economic Partnership" which was released in October 2008. Officials announced the launch of negotiations on 6 May 2009 at the Canada-EU Summit in Prague. This after the Canada-EU Summit in Ottawa on 18 March 2004 where leaders agreed to a framework for a new Canada-EU Trade and Investment Enhancement...

Germany has torpedoed it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

oh. Not between your country and mine, then, but rather between my country and all y'all's countries.

yay

Cerberus

In its current form, it is as good as dead. As I predicted it would be.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

these agreements are always filled with bullshit

Cerberus

Nowadays, yes.

But they wouldn't have to be.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:18 AM

The government is trying too hard to meet the needs of certain special interests in these treaties, that's the problem.

Cerberus

So you and I are spared so-called corporate sovereignty.

Exactly.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I hate my government. I cannot wait until the next election.

Hopefully things improve.

Cerberus

Special interests being multinational companies. These interests usually conflict with the interests of mid-sized and small companies, and everyone else.

Harper, I think it is?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Yes

Cerberus

Yes, we do not hear good things about him.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:19 AM

He's like the Rob Ford of Federal politics, minus the likeability and the scandals.

Cerberus

Our current government is much better than the last.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The dude is a total psychopath

Cerberus

Haha. So you would prefer Ford for PM?

Or what is he called, Governor?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Ford could never be PM

Cerberus

I know.

Harper is a psychopath?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:21 AM

Yes. He will do anything at all if it serves his interests. He has no morals or qualms.

Cerberus

What's his background?

Civil service?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

what kind of background?

Cerberus

Party apparatus?

Business?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

He's been in politics for years

Cerberus

OK so party apparatus.

Unless you have a better name.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:22 AM

He's been a member of parliament since 1993

Cerberus

Right.

The European Commission still defends the evil corporate-sovereignty clauses in CETA:

> Without these clauses, the European Commission's trade department says, a Canadian company will hardly invest in Europe.

Yes, hardly.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yes, right. He's a founding member of the "Reform Party", which was formed because the right-wing party at the time wasn't right-wing enough.

Cerberus

Yikes.

> in 2012, the total investment by EU companies in Canada was €258 billion, while Canadian investment in the EU was €115 billion

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The Reform Party and the Progressive-Convservative party split the Right vote for years. Then Reform announced a merger of the two parties and renamed themselves to the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party. It was the best branding ever. Shortly after they renamed themselves "Canadian Alliance".

Cerberus

Canadian companies will hardly invest in Europe. Only a slight €115 billion.

Szabolcs

1:25 AM

Hi!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Eventually, the P-C party had enough defections to the CA party that they merged the two parties for real, and not just in the CCRAP party leader's imagination.

So now the federal party is much righter-wing than it used to be.

Cerberus

Oh, dear.

Szabolcs

How can I express "more inner" in English? "innermost" is the "most inner". I have a number of objects characterized by how "central" they are (however, "central" is not a precise term here). I want to refer to all objects which are close to the middle than a certain object.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

At least some of our more progressive laws, like the human rights code, are more-or-less sacrosanct, so they haven't been able to turn back the clock on things like abortion or gay marriage.

Cerberus

Because the leadership of the "Alliance" mainly consists for the former Reformers?

Szabolcs

1:26 AM

innermore ?

Cerberus

Haha, that would sound nice...but it would be a neologism, I'm afraid.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus And their power base is heavily concentrated in the western provinces.

Cerberus

But you can use a neologism, why not?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Szabolcs innerer

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And...those are more right-wing?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:27 AM

@Cerberus Yes. Alberta is Canada's Texas.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Another neologism.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Yes it's a joke.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Eek.

Let them secede, then!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'd rather the rest of the country just keep electing left or centrist parties and let Alberta stew with inadequate representation.

Cerberus

@Szabolcs I still think more central is your best option, why not use it?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then you will need to make it a colony.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:28 AM

@Cerberus It's too late for that.

Cerberus

Or, as we called Brabant and Limburg, generaliteitslanden.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

They have the oil, they have the money

Cerberus

Lands directly governed by the Estates General, so without representation.

They do?

High incomes?

That sucks.

Perhaps this nudibranch can cheer you up.

in English Language Learners, 47 mins ago, by snailboat

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/nudibranchs/doubilet-photography

> Germany's justified concerns about corporate sovereignty in CETA apply even more strongly to the far-bigger agreement. If it wants ISDS out of one, it will certainly want it out of the other. A refusal by the US to accept that -- quite likely, given its firm support for corporate sovereignty -- would mean that TAFTA/TTIP is dead.

A happy conclusion.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Oh, I'm not unhappy. I've come to terms with the Harper government. I just can't wait for them to fuck up. It almost happened when their senators were caught doing criminal things with money. The PM's office even paid one off, but inexplicably that didn't result in charges laid against the payer.

There will be an election next year, I think. Hopefully the Liberal leader can get his act together and win something. If he can't, it will be bad, because the NDP (socialist) party had a lot of support last time... if they maintain their support they are splitting the left vote with the Liberals.

Oh how I wish for electoral reform.

Cerberus

What's wrong with splitting the left vote between socialists and liberals?

> While European opposition mounts, it is important to note that Canada was also delaying finalizing CETA due to ISDS concerns.

So European governments don't want ISDS, and neither does Canada. Who is conducting those negotiations?? Must be exclusively lobbyists or something. Clearly not representatives of the Canadian or European people or governments.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:39 AM

@Cerberus There are two parties on the left, and one party on the right (The conservative party)

We have first-past-the-post elections and the government is formed by whoever has a plurality.

So you can end up with a government that most people don't want.

Cerberus

Oh, dear.

Whoever thought winner-take-all election districts, or ridings, were a good idea??

And why is it mainly Anglo-Saxon countries have them?

Although I think France also partly has such elections, but they're a bit different.

And we are lucky there, or Le Pen would win far more seats...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's a very simple system to understand, that's why we have it.

But there are enough parties vying for power here that there is a non-zero chance that someday it might change. Pretty close to zero though. Buy your lottery tickets in bulk.

Cerberus

Heh.

Add up all votes cast in the entire country, and give each party seats in parliament proportionally. It's very simple.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That means none of the representatives are actually representing any specific people.

Considering how our nation is structured, I'm sure nobody would go for that.

Cerberus

Well, those representatives who receive the most votes are guaranteed seats.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:47 AM

You'd have to at least break it down by province.

Cerberus

So if Harper is no. 1, and he gets 5 million votes, and he'd need only 200,000 for a seat, he would pass down his votes on to the no. 1 on his party's list, and so on.

So people who pass the 200,000 bar are guaranteed a seat, and the rest can only hope to receive excess votes from people who have passed the bar; the idea is that, if you vote for Harper, you can see on his list what will happen with your vote if he gets excess votes, and you trust his judgement in passing them on to another candidate who is equally worthy. See how that works?

(So Harper would pass on 1,800,000 votes to the no. 2.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, currently, if you need 200,000 for a seat that implies that there are only 399,999 voters voting for you.

Or else nobody votes for any reps at all, and they strictly vote for a party (admittedly this is how I choose my candidate, mainly). Then you could have each party allocate its votes along some ranking system.

But there is still the problem that, eg, Quebec would go nuts if any votes in Quebec went toward electing an MP not in Quebec, irrespective of what party they are in.

Cerberus

2:03 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Huh, what?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, then all Québecois parties should conclude a "list-connection": any excess votes from participating parties will go to a pool that is first divided between them, and only then passed on to other parties.

So the number of votes that could potentially go to, say, Harper's party would be small.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus members run in ridings. The number of votes you need to guarantee a seat is 50% +1 of the votes in the riding.

skullpatrol

@Szabolcs "innermost" is the best :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus It would be simpler to just divide the vote pools by province.

Szabolcs

@skullpatrol But I need comparative, not superlative.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, people vote for parties anyway. So if there is only 1 candidate from your party in your riding, then you have no choice; in a proportional system, however, you have the whole party list to choose from. Often times, candidates lower on the list will make it, even though they would fail to get a seat if it had been up to the party leader to assign all the seats.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:08 AM

@Cerberus Hm, that's an interesting idea. letting me choose not only which party, but which candidate in which party.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But less fair. What if you don't like Québecois parties? Then you cannot vote for a different party that better represents your opinions.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's what I was trying to explain!

skullpatrol

@Szabolcs compare everything to the "innermost", such as the next further out, etc.

Cerberus

I get only one vote, for one person.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus The point I am getting at is that people from Quebec want to elect people from Quebec. All the parties can be represented.

Szabolcs

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innermore

Cerberus

2:10 AM

But this person has beforehand agreed to pass on my vote if he gets more than the required number of votes. And he is forced to pass them on if he doesn't get enough.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then those people can all vote for Québecois people on the various party lists. I get to choose between hundreds of candidates from all parties, living everywhere in the country.

skullpatrol

@Szabolcs use the "innermost" as your reference

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus But if the Quebecois vote is split too much, and none of the QC candidates are guaranteed spots, then the vote sharing could lead to QC candidates not getting elected for arbitrary reasons. Frankly each province is sure to demand that its proprotional share of members be maintained.

Szabolcs

Thank everyone for the advice! :)

George Capote

what an awful question

Cerberus

@Szabolcs According to the Oxford English Dictionary, innermore once existed as a word but is now obsolete.

Why not revive it?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:12 AM

@Cerberus *now

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You can have regional parties in national elections. Just make a Québecois party with a list of exclusively Q. candidates.

skullpatrol

innerleast?

outerleast

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No. That isn't the point. It isn't that the people from QC want only a regional party. They want ALL the members who represent QC to be from QC.

Szabolcs

@Cerberus That's what I did, no one will misunderstand it, and it's as concise as it needed to be. And I really need to finish writing this up, sorry for not always replying right away :) Thank you again to everyone for the responses!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So if QC elects 15 PCs, 30 Liberals and 40 NDPs then they'd better be 85/85 quebecois.

@Szabolcs When your work is published, send it to the OED as a modern citation for innermore.

Cerberus

2:15 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, if the people of Québec want that, then they can all vote for Québecois candidates in Q. parties, and they shall have just that.

@Szabolcs Cool! Good luck.

Szabolcs

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hehe, I'd love to, unfortunately it'll never be published (supposed to be confidential)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus But what guarantee is there that those people get elected? Let's say the vote is evenly split in the whole country. Why does any particular QC member get elected over an ON or NB member?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then the Q. people will need to form a Q. PC party, a Q. Liberal party, and a Q. NDP party.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus OOOOOOORRRRRRR we could just do exactly as you described, except in province-sized ridings.

instead of one, big, national riding.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You misunderstand. I am this Q. PC guy. I form a party called "Q. PC". I put 50 Q. people on my list. Anyone in Canada can vote for each person on my list. In practice, what will happen is that mainly Q. people will vote for my list. And people from elsewhere will not. So the result will be that roughly the same 15 Q. people get elected as in the system you suggestion, with proportional voting per province.

Only the excess votes between 15 seats and 16 will possibly go to some other party. But I have connected my list with other Q. parties, so they will go to the Q. Liberals or the Q. Socialists first before going to a party from elsewhere.

skullpatrol

2:21 AM

I can understand why "innermore" became obsolete, it just sounds archiac to me :)

@Szabolcs Comparing everything to the "innermost" is the modern way to do it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus You are assuming that the Q.PC would ever share votes with the Q.anything_else. They wouldn't; they'd rather share votes with the ON.PC

Cerberus

Well, if that is what they want to do, then why not let them do so?

It's only excess votes anyway, less than one seat.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If such a thing is possible, then I guarantee that system would never be adopted.

You could never sell that system to Quebec.

Cerberus

By whom? If that is what the Q. PC wants to do, then surely it will support adopting such a system.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

They'd view it as stealing their sovereignty.

Cerberus

2:25 AM

The same applies to the other Q. parties.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Quebec sees itself as its own nation.

There is no way they will give up even theoretical influence.

Cerberus

And yet its parties want to share votes outside Q.?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Who knows? There is no such thing!

Federally, currently, the PC, Lib, NDP, etc, are national parties. Each party has members running in every riding.

Quebec is unique in also having one or two parties that run for federal office but have no members in any other province.

But the parties are national

Cerberus

What I am saying is this. Either they want to share votes outside Q., or they don't want to. If they are so much against passing votes to non-Q. parties, then they will not share votes outside Q. Problem solved.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus If the parties are national, then interests outside Quebec could lead those parties to share votes outside quebec. If the parties are not national, then the parties cannot form the government, because the government is formed by the party with the plurality of seats.

Cerberus

2:28 AM

The whole plurality thing also needs to go.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, THAT is going nowhwere.

Cerberus

It means that only a small part of the electorate gets to rule.

All parties except the largest party should be against the plurality thing, because it is not in their interest.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

In principle it is possible for coalitions to form. I dont' know if it has ever happened.

Cerberus

It should! The only disadvantage is that coalitions are less stable; the large advantage is that the government is actually formed by the majority.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If a coalition forms, then in theory they get to be the government. But in practice the minority parties are too toxic to each other to form a useful coalition.

Cerberus

2:30 AM

Then they are fools...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

lol

or they are just too ideologically opposed to each other.

Cerberus

Our parties are probably also foolish, but they are forced to overcome their foolishness, since the largest party can never govern on its own without support from some other party to get to 76 seats (out of 150).

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The recent provincial election we had was triggered when the smallest party withdrew support of the largest (it was a minority gov). The smallest and middle party could have formed a coalition, in theory, but they basically agree on zero points.

Cerberus

If plurality were abolished, then one of the minor parties would eventually coöperate with the largest party to form a government.

They get a couple of ministers.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If plurality were abolished, and no parties could agree on a coalition, what happens?

Cerberus

2:33 AM

They keep trying and trying and trying.

Eventually, the Queen may be forced to call new elections. But this has never happened.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway, plurality isn't the problem. Actually I like minority governments because they tend to be more moderate.

Cerberus

Sometimes it takes a very long time to form a coalition. But it always happens in the end. The fewer/larger your parties are, the easier it is.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

They have, essentially, shifting alliances of coalitions.

Cerberus

Right, I suppose that is an advantage.

So all they get to do is pick all the ministers?

That is all the largest party gets?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway, the point is that the Q.PC party can't be a different party than the Federal.PC party. Our government is organized around federal parties.

Cerberus

2:35 AM

Sure it can!

Anyone can form a party.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Maybe if we also rewrite the constitution while we're doing this election reform.

Cerberus

Of course you would have to change the constitution.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

ha. well, constitutional change is dead in the water.

Cerberus

We couldn't change election laws except by changing the constitution. Which is indeed extremely hard.

A 2/3 majority in both houses, then the same again after elections. That's what you need.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I think we could probably manage to change the election laws. But I seriously don't see them changing the rest of the constitution at the same time. You have NO IDEA how fraught that process is here.

Cerberus

2:37 AM

Election laws are not in the constitution? I believe ours are.

They're about the only specific thing in our constitution.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I'm not sure if they are.

But my point is that surgical changes to the constitution might be possible. Wholesale changes are not.

And those surgical changes must not in any way appear to diminish Quebec's sovereignty.

Cerberus

Well, there is better and best.

I wholeheartedly agree that proportionality within large districts is much better than none at all.

"None at all" being "winner take all per (small) district".

So as I said the one advantage to winner-take-all is that you block all new/small parties, so also extremists/populists.

But even an election threshold is better than w-t-a, like in Germany.

If you score under 5% of all votes in the country, you get 0 seats.

Above 5%, it is entirely proportional.

I don't know what happens to the lost 5%: are they thrown away? Or do they have "list connections"?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

To give you an idea about how hard constitution law is: Our country was formed in 1867. Britain attempted to relinquish what control it had left in 1931, but we required a deferral of that relinquishment because we couldn't get everyone to agree on terms until 1982.

skullpatrol

There's a famous story of a teacher teaching a very rigorous version of calculus without any pictures. In the middle of a proof, he gets stuck on the next step, draws a picture on the board with his coat hiding it from the students, then quickly erasing it so that his students never saw it.

Typical.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I don't get it.

skullpatrol

2:49 AM

Teachers like to play games. This game is called "I have a secret."

Diagrams are next in importance to symbols in math.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So, he drew a picture, and that was bad, because he's supposed to do it without pictures? But then he erased the picture, so the students never saw it?

skullpatrol

yes