Humodour

This is a common argument that is accepted as generally true out of the general cynicism of the electorate, but why is this necessarily the case? And, if it is the case, I'd think that a voter should prefer a system of single-member districts (whether elected via simple one-shot plurality or by some kind of run-off system) where a single candidate can make a case that they are best for the job, with or without support of a major party. Multi-member districts and similar proportional systems have the primary effect of elevating the party above the candidate-- the likelihood that the voter has any kind of informed opinion on the worthiness of the candidates declines dramatically when the candidates are simply names in a party's list. Instead, voters apply the heuristics that are provided to them-- the vote for the party with whose views they most agree, without much attention paid to whether the candidates actually on the ballot are worthy of their vote. If that's not "strengthening the hold of the parties over the electoral system," I don't know what is. (This also ties in with the British conflating of the legislative and executive power-- that one's vote for a legislator is also the only way that one influences what ministers will be running the various executive agencies. Both make the voter think more about a candidate's party affiliation than his/her personal worthiness for the post.) Uuuum, preferential voting is a different thing to multi-member seats. In fact, preferential voting in multi-member seats produces proportional representation. Australia's lower house (House of Reps) for example has preferential voting in single-member seats.

I don't believe that the current system is represetative, infact, if you look at the numbers it most certainly IS NOT representative. Functional, well that's another debate. Well, of course you don't think the system is representative-- the candidates you would prefer to support don't have a chance of winning. Every system is going to have winners and losers. If you want to be on the other side of that line, convince more of your neighbors to vote in the manner you would prefer. Hence it is not ****ing representative. Christ, not a hard concept to grasp, Enoch. You of all people.

Yeah, I agree, get off my lawn you damn kids! Back in my day...

Preferential voting is the system Australia has used in the lower house for around 100 years, and it has worked very, very well. It certainly prevents certain very illogical situations. The country that perhaps needs preferential voting even more than the UK or America is Canada (although all 3 of them dearly need it). As for you not wanting certain people to have their voice properly heard at the ballot box, Wals, what the **** is that all about? Indecisive? You think somebody is indecisive if they vote for their favourite party (say Libertarian Party) but want to make sure that if the Libertarians don't win the seat that their vote for the Libertarians doesn't lead to a weakening of the vote for a party they'd otherwise also prefer, leading to the party they least prefer winning the seat (which is what happens under first-past-the-post)? Screw your small-minded elitist attitude. And yes, you're wrong. There are a few countries which can lay claim to being the worlds oldest continuous democracies (including Iceland, IIRC), but the UK is definitely and pretty obviously not one of them.

Value does not exist. You are merely a creation of my mind.

I hope I get to play as Gordon Freeman in DotA 2. Or maybe a vortigaunt! Or the G-Man...

China's rise is over-hyped. I would like to remind everybody that the world still consists of strong entities all over - Brazil, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Latin America as a whole, India, South-East Asia as a whole, even Russia, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the other Commonwealths, America... and I'm sure there's a few countries in Africa that are relevant - maybe South Africa, Morocco, Nigeria. We're leaving an era of American dominance, certainly, but we're not entering an era of Chinese dominance because so many other countries are rising strongly at the same time, while existing power-players will remain strong.

Believe it. We've been able to teleport particles like photons for ages now. These particles are bosons, not fermions. I don't think we've been able to teleport fermions (e.g. protons, neutrons, atoms). It relies on a quantum property called 'entanglement'. What's unique about this discovery is that we can teleport the particles both accurately and quickly. No, it is not faster than the speed of light AFAIK. I'll be able to tell you more after I've taken quantum mechanics next year I guess. Haha. Here's the PhysOrg article on it (the link you provided is now broken): http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-quantu...eakthrough.html Here's the wiki link for quantum teleportation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation It says this: EDIT: So to clarify, this is a good breakthrough for most types of quantum computing!

No such a word. Stupid - more stupid - most stupid :Grammarnazi: Est

I like how the worms are crawling out of the woodwork to bag out Valve for having the balls to run with something completely different.

Good ol Krezack. Always ready to remind you how your country sucks. Oh, no, America is pretty great. You've just got lots of silly people residing there.

Over half the people in America may be idiots, but at least they're not subservient idiots like over half the people in Russia. See it's not racist 'cause I insulted them both equally. Well, mostly equally.

The Dutch and Japanese governments have both funded studies into illegal music downloading which both came back reporting it was of net benefit to the industry.

Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, and Portal are my favourite Valve games. HL2, HL2: Ep 2, and L4D1&2 are good games but not in the same league. I am hit by that Win 7 crash on first loading screen with Portal 2 so I'll have to wait for Valve to patch it. A good thing, really; I should study this long weekend.

Smartphones are amazing. Get one. If only for Wikipedia and Google at your fingertips anywhere. Just don't buy Apple products (i.e. avoid iPad, iPhone). The Android range are awesome and have good privacy (turn off the GPS if you're afraid someone will track you anymore than they already can simply be the fact that any mobile phone is on the grid). Personally I have an 'old' Nokia N900. I believe they're discontinued now. Except I've tried lots of smartphones since and nothing quite compares to it. Helps that it has a full Firefox browser and the processing power to run it smoothly. On that note anybody know if you can download Firefox for Android? I don't want those ****ty mobile browsers which load mobile versions of sites.

Vologic.

I, too, have recently spent 3 years in a Buddhist monastery. Brothers?

Steve Jobs can also suck my **** while he's at it. More dirt on Apple: International Trade court sides with Nokia and HTC in Apple's lawsuit against them: http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2011/04/20...ainst-apple.htm Meanwhile Apple's newer lawsuit against Samsung reeks of desperation, is full of inconsistencies, and is amusing considering Samsung is Apple's main chip and part supplier... talk about biting the hand that feeds: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383820,00.asp

I'm downloading it now... ****ty Internet connection in this old house so only getting 400kb/s speed. Considering all the hype and expectation I'm not sure it will manage to match the glory of Portal 1, but hey, I trust Valve well enough to supply me with a fantastic game regardless.

Australia will soon have subsidised universal fibre to the home, so I'm not too worried. Obviously the speed of fibre is the speed of light, but the switches being installed will deliver speeds of 1Gbps or 10Gbps to the end user (depending on when the area receives the rollout - later rollouts will receive faster switches due to falling equipment costs over time). From there, the investment opportunities and emergent technologies are elementary.

Well, your childish attitude aside, it's completely fair to juxtapose two social drugs, compare their harms, and ask people to think about why one of them is legal and the other is not. Alcohol is not harmless and to pretend otherwise is immature. I enjoy a pint of Kilkenny with my nachos as well as the next man, but I don't see why I should be stupid enough to pretend that in excess alcohol is not formidably bad for my health.

I find it hypocritical that you people are perfectly will to ignore any health advice about alcohol and pretend it is completely safe whilst simultaneously willing to judge and lecture those of us who partake in what are in fact healthier drugs such as psychedelics or marijuana. To which I shall respond by observing that your dope smoking has addled your wits! Because I have assiduously argued it should be legal. If sky diving is a matter for individual discretion then so too should cooking one's hippocampus like a fillet of duck. I am aware you have, and you'll notice I was using the 2nd person plural as a collective term, not specifically targetting you. As to the personal insult - well, it's baseless. I stopped smoking marijuana a while ago when I started uni again this year. Been cruising on a HD average for engineering maths, Spanish, and chemistry ever since. I highly doubt I've any problem with my faculties. BTW, more than the hippocampus I'd say it's the amygdala that gets wrecked by getting drunk.

I find it hypocritical that you people are perfectly will to ignore any health advice about alcohol and pretend it is completely safe whilst simultaneously willing to judge and lecture those of us who partake in what are in fact healthier drugs such as psychedelics or marijuana.